costing advice - Kemper

darcym

I'm looking to pickup a used Kemper, rack, unpowered.

I'll never gig this so don't want powered, I basically just want it to help doing my song writing/rough demos to get a better feel for songs and sounds when writing before recording properly or working them out with the band.

It will basically live in a rack in my home studio so it has to be rack and wasting money on the power amp seems just wasteful.

What sort of cash should I be looking to spend to pickup a used one when they crop up (seen a few appear but already missed them as people upgrade to the power amp included version or the non-rack version).

Whats your thoughts ?

Fiftyshadesofjay

Don't see a lot of racks but the head goes for about £950 ish, depending on accessories/purchased profiles.

Bear in mind the head and rack retail new for exactly the same price.

ragingben

The heads usually go for around 1k, but I'm not sure about the racks, most likely a little more as you see then second hand a lot less frequently.

To be honest I don't blame you going unpowered. I recently bought the powerhead and thought that I'd only really useful with a cab at home, but I've been mainly using mine through my home setup only and it sounds huge! So just using my cab for band practice and probably gigging as we don't always have good monitors.

Recently over on the kemper forum I've noticed a few threads regarding quality issues with the new racks...Could all be hear'say but theres a few people reporting a weird issue with the gain control turning off the store led when the gain is set low, apparently it's a firmware issue but it only seems to be happening to new users. Probably won't affect you second hand but worth bearing in mind.

ToneControl

for a digital device that's £1220 new with a 3 year warranty, I would think that £950-£1000 for a used one doesn't look very attractive

Moe_Zambeek

^^ agreed. Given the imminent--obsolescence built in to these kind of things, 950 doesn't seem enough of a price reduction over new.

darcym

yeah, there is no way I'd pay a grand when I can buy one new for £1200.

I am toying with just buying a new one

crunchman

ToneControl said:

for a digital device that's £1220 new with a 3 year warranty, I would think that £950-£1000 for a used one doesn't look very attractive

Agreed.  I'm planning to buy new unless I can find one for around £800 - or it's got £200 worth of Amp Factory Stuff.

I'm not sure whether to do it next week (when the funds from a guitar sale clear) or wait until January and see if they come out with the foot controller at NAMM - there might be bundle deals with that, or whether Yamaha/Line 6 come up with something improved that may come in a bit cheaper.

Drew_TNBD

Got mine for £900 off of this very forum. I bought the carry bag for an extra £40. Saving just over £300 for the two is still worth it to me.

darcym

I'm not interested in foot controllers, or anything like that, it's for home studio demos only,

to remove the processing of guitars/bass amps from protools onto the kemper would be fantastic.

I really dislike the use of digital modelling stuff (and I've used a kermper from a professional who uses it on big tours - so fully appreciate how good it actually is) but think this will be an excellent tool, so thought picking up a used one maybe a good introduction to one.

But I may just buy one and see how useful it is as a demo too (I think it will be very useful)

Fiftyshadesofjay

Assuming the unit still has warranty, I believe it's actually transferable.

crunchman

Drew_fx said:

Got mine for £900 off of this very forum. I bought the carry bag for an extra £40. Saving just over £300 for the two is still worth it to me.

I've seen too many complicated electronic things go wrong and turn themselves into expensive bricks so I'd prefer to have a warranty.  Admittedly a lot of those were made by TC Electronics.  If you take my experience with TC out, then the failure rate I've experienced is very low.

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

Assuming the unit still has warranty, I believe it's actually transferable.

That's interesting to know.  I'll check that out.  If I can find one that someone has bought new, and decided they didn't like it after a month or two then it would change things.

darcym

just bought a new one as I found somewhere with a good deal.

Moe_Zambeek

Interesting - can you share the details?

darcym

Studio Exchange - give them a call rather than read the website.

Moe_Zambeek

Ta!

Moe_Zambeek

Just realised I have some credit at a kemper dealer. I don't think I'll buy one right now but I'll give a discount if anyone wants to help me liquidate the credit!

crunchman

You just reminded me of something.  Are Thomann still giving vouchers for reviewing your purchases?  I could probably get £50 off for reviewing the stuff I've bought from them if they are.