After waiting for about a year, Kemper 2.0 is finally here. Opinions so far?
All I can hear is about a 1% difference. Very subtle. Mostly in the highs. Must have increased sampling from 6K and above and smoothed out the 11K spike. Seems to be more touch responsive as well.

I'm actually relieved. Means I don't have to rush out and buy a new Kemper for a while. I'll upgrade but it can wait for now.

 

I prefer ToneX V2 to Kemper V2 as far as accuracy goes.
Tone and dynamic accuracy :
NAM > ToneX V2 > Quad Cortex > Kemper > ToneX V1 > everything else

But my Mooer GE200 played better than Tonex V1 ... that's why i sold my tonex pedal V1 before the update.
Dynamic was really bad on TX V1.
ToneX V1 s*cked for tight high gain metal.

It took them 3 years to admit it and fix it, when they tried to make a Van Halen "brown sound" bank with Top Jimi and it was simply not possible with V1. They introduced some tweaking with V1 and V2 after it.
That's why Brown Sound sounded so much better than anything else ToneX V1.

During all this time (and before), Kemper ruled the world as profiler for live gig high gain metal ... and a lot more genres.
Accurate enough AND dynamic / articulated enough
The real profiling contender was Quad Cortex until ToneX V2.

I don't hear (on demos) so much difference between Kemper V1 and V2, but it was already better than Tonex V1 from start.
I could see myself buying a second hand Kemper V1 for 700 euros but i don't think i would put twice to get a brand new V2.
And may be would buy a brand new Nano cortex for 700 euros instead.

Too little, too late to justify the gap. Especially full price.
And running a ToneX as full chain is a pain, because you need to add effects (until you need very few).

At the end, for live gig, profiler choice is Kemper vs Cortex.
Or Helix and Fractal for modeling.

Too bad IK didn't understood ToneX should be included in a real MFX, with better incremental ENGINE updates instead of waiting 3 years.

PS : about the "high roll out", it is a trick used by ToneX V1 (and more profilers) too.
Some devs use a "pre high cut" before capture to reduce ressources AND reduce aliasing.
At the end, highs are cut by the guitar speaker. So it shouldn't matter that much.
But it seems some devs done it too aggressively

 

Last edited: Mar 5, 2026 at 9:01 PM

I updated yesterday but couldn't find any new profiles by date.
Today there are plenty so I'll be digging in and and reporting back.
I will say that while waiting for this update I put the Kemper in mothballs and used the V2 Nanocortex instead.
Found a ripping chainsaw guitar profile that is my go to now and a great bass profile.
Will be interesting to see how the V2's compare.

 

ItsFine, thanks for your insight! Yeah, to me the Kemper is just another tool in the toolbox. Thing is, I've gotten so use to the work flow and dialing in the right sounds, it would be hard to switch to anything else. Have been eyeing a Revv G20 or Synergy modules for the toolbox though haha.

Kluster, your a brave man updating your Kemper OS right now. Dill has posted some new 2.0 profiles on rig exchange so be sure and check those out.