That's my understanding, but I don't see that as (necessarily) in Axe's favor. The benefit of the Kemper is that it captures the tone 100% based on a specific set of amp settings. The downside is, the more adjustments you make, the less it sounds like the original amp. OTOH, the Axe gets like 80-90% close to the overall sound of an amp, but with all settings intact and functional so you can dial it in to the exact amp tone; the same way you can on a "real" amp. Different approaches, each with strengths. Just not sure which will be better for me. I love my amps. But if I sell one of them, then need to reprofile because I want to change settings, am I out of luck?
Do you really care if your modeller sounds 100% like the real amp being modeled?
I never have.
I don't think any modeller will ever be able to 100% replicate any real-world amp anyway.
There's just too many variables.
All I care about is sounding really good and having a powerful small rig.
The reasons I use the Axe-FX are:
1. Pristine signal path with no need to compensate for capacitance loss due to long cable runs and/or non-true-bypass pedals and/or problems caused by or solved by buffer systems etc.
2. Form factor. Within my little 4-space rack I have all the power of what used to need a refrigerator-sized rack.
3. State-of-the-art pedal simulations and time-based rack effects.
4. Amp sims that sound as good or better than the best real amps in the world.
Pretty much every style of amp is represented in the Amp Type list from clean Fender to Hi-Gain Preamp Mesa amplifiers (and most solid state amps can be replicated too w/o necessarily even using an amp block).
5. Programabilty. And the routing options and effects triggering schemes in the Axe are unparalleled anywhere.
I sold my Mesa Triaxis rig when I bought my Ultra back in 2008.
The Ultra sounded better than my Triaxis rig even back then in my opinion.
Plus the Ultra rig was several orders of magnitude more versatile and powerful.
Cliff was one of the first preamp makers to include tube power amp simulations (clean and/or overdriven) in his preamp programs.
Up until the Standard, guitar preamps were just mimicking the preamp sections of guitar amps.
People seem to forget that and how revolutionary it was.
Guitarists could finally put their pristine time-based effects *after* the tube power amp (w/o needing to be using mics, a mixing console, and outboard gear in a studio to do that).
Up until then we had to use effects loops that sat right in between the preamp and the power amp so the power amp was destroying the sound of those pristine effects.
Show me any single real-world tube amp that can do that today and I'll probably buy that and use that instead of the Axe.
But it will also have to weigh as much or less than my little 4-space rack and will have to be just about as small and it will also have to have a bunch of stomp box sims built-in and a bunch of state-of-the-art time-based effects and state-of-the-art routing and effects switching over MIDI capabilities, etc., etc., etc.
If you really need 3 or 4 *exact* static sounds that 3 or 4 of your real amps can only produce the Kemper might actually be a better choice than the Axe for that (assuming those profiles already exist for those amps or you know how to shoot those profiles yourself) whether or not the Kemper nails those sounds 100%.
The Axe might also be able to get you as close to those 3 or 4 tones but it might be a few percent off because Cliff doesn't own those particular amps or may have chosen not to model them yet.
But obsessing over those 3 or 4 real amps and that one sound that each of them gets sounds really limiting to me.
