Hi all!
I´ve also taken the time to play the Kemper at the Musikmesse to make my mind up and to get a feeling what it can (or can´t) do.
At first I will say It looks good (IMO, I´m in the minority here) and is built in metal, for the road (and still light enough to carry it in a proper bag, or have a little case made for it).
Operating the unit is easy and intuitive.
It sounds good and feels good. No latency that disturbed my playing or gave me a feeling of being disconnected.
But: It doesn´t sound better than an AxeFx, and it also doesn´t sound any better than a latest generation Pod HD.
Concerning the terminology of "profiling" I will clearly state what it is (IMO with my limited technical understanding):
Profiling is a snapshot of an amp with a given constellation of how the drive, tone and master controls are set including miking the amp up. Period.
This can sound awesome, good, mediocre, or not so good.
You can change the results that you get with a "generic" tone control that has NOTHING to do with the tone control of the profiled amp. It totally lacks the interactivity and tone or drive shaping abilities that we love in certain amps (or hate in certain others, it depends).
OTOH you can do some fancy things with that generic control section (e.g. pick sensitivity and stuff), that I haven´t personally seen before.
Further impressions: The AC 30 profile that was loaded in the unit that I played was really meh. And consequently tweaking didn´t get me anywhere.
OTOH a 1972 Plexi profile sounded awewsome.
My conclusion: Organic tweaking isn´t possible with the Kemper. The profiles in the Kemper are like a black box that cannot be substantially changed once they are captured. Good profiles will sound good and feel good, though.
It might be a LOT of work to have or get a collection of profiles that a given end user REALLY likes.
Changing profiles from user to user via internet should be possible but isn´t any more valid than getting an AxeFx patch from another user. The AxeFx patch I can tweak to the highest degree. A Kemper profile I can´t.
I like modeling à la Pod or AxeFx definitely better.
Nonetheless the "Kemper concept" is an interesting alternative to the market, no question.
The future of modeling profiling certainly is not.