Reactive Load boxes and IR’s are basically the newest and most exciting tech to come out of the guitar industry since modeling. “Yesterday’s news” is the last thing I’d call it.
And the best examples of Reactive Load tech so far only emulate the impedance curve of a single, specific 8-ohm Marshall 4x12 with Greenbacks. And IR tech is advancing all the time. Fractal just announced new “FullRes” IR tech literally yesterday, which is an IR format that supports super long IRs that capture the room reverb of whatever room the cab IR is shot in. Basically it’s “room mic” IRs. There is sooo much farther this tech could go. And funny enough quite a few non-forum-going guitar players don’t even know about it yet.
Omg yes this. I’ve got a Kemper and Axe III. They fucking suck. Sorry they do.
This is very much not my experience. I don’t have a Kemper so I can’t speak to that but the Axe-Fx III is so close now it’s kind of unreal. Do the Axe’s amp models sound exactly like my specific tube amps? No. But do they sound *as good as* my specific tube amps? Personally I think they do, yeah.
Also there’s nothing in the industry that even comes close to the Axe-Fx’s effects capabilities. Even if you don’t use the modeling, it would be worth it for the effects alone.
The worst critique I can give about the Axe-Fx is that I think it’s really unsuited for live environments or sessions where you have to tweak sounds fast. If you have a laptop running the editor software and a mouse, it’s doable, and if you have plenty of time to dive into building sounds, it’s basically unparalleled. But if you’re playing out somewhere and you need more mids or less gain or something NOW, then yeah it’s going to be annoying.
But overall it certainly doesn’t suck. Not even close.