Eminence Karnivore IR Pack - The Holy Grail of Metal IRs?!

hfam

hfam

Inspired
I'm just gonna start here by saying that I am absolutely blown AWAY with this IR pack. I'm not even sure I know where to start so bear with me, but this is SO good I had to share it with you all. What follows is 100% my own opinion on this pack, your mileage may vary.

The Karnivore is a new speaker from Eminence designed in collaboration with Kristian Kohle. It's essentially a V30-esque speaker, dialed in to perfection for metal, across the board. While we await the arrival of the hardware to the big box stores (Sweetwater, etc), they released an IR pack, and it is absolutely off the charts amazing. Perfect, I'd say.

32 IRs: 28 Karnivore IRs, 4 Prototype IRs. $49.99 The 4 prototypes take you through the process of creation, very cool and thoughtful to include em.

Here's the full promotional release video by Kristian himself from July '25...history, description, process, etc, on both the speaker itself and the IR pack. Really interesting stuff.



Each IR is dialed in for a particular tone, a bit of a different approach to what I've seen traditionally, as opposed to having many, many IRs all sorted by mic & position, etc. Guess what? IT WORKS! Kristian has perfected each of these and designed to be able to just get to work. All 32 of these IRs are 100% usable and desirable straight "out of the box". I have NEVER picked up any IR pack and had so much usable material. It's ALL great! I have spent 2 full days redoing my main presets on both my AFX2 and AFX3 and I'm still A/B-ing various combinations, it's all so damned good. SO good!

These really need to be played to be fully appreciated. I can tell you that it took me a month of back and forth before I finally threw down the cash and took the chance, and I feel like I won the lottery! It was really the last piece of the puzzle for me. I was never fully 100% happy with my presets, it was always the cab. I just couldn't satisfy, something was always needing something. This pack removed that entirely, I am truly 100% happy with my presets. Even the next day! 🤣 It will be a very long time before I'm looking for any IRs, if ever. These are far better than I ever imagined they would be. Voodoo magic shit. Just brilliant.

I am so blown away by this IR pack that, despite loading up my one and only Marshall with 4 brand new G12T-75s over the summer, I just ordered 4 of the Karnivores today to replace those. For real. I may mix/match 'em in the end, but what I've seen/heard of the actual Karnivore speakers are absolutely perfect and I can't wait to get my hands on 'em! They're supposed to be in at Sweetwater here in a week or so and there's already a "list", so get busy if you want in on the hardware. These IRs though are pure magic and worth every single penny IMO.

Euge Valovirta (you gotta love Euge!) did an solid and entertaining review of this pack and it ultimately sold me on the IR pack, roll it at 9:55 to get right to the IR reviews:

 
Someone on another forum has bought 8 of these speakers and this week released their own IR pack as well.

Going solely off their clips, it seems like it's meant for single-guitar bands or bands where both guitarists dial in similar tones. I want to hear the speaker in context from more players, myself.

"Everyone" wants to take away the spike from a V30, and then they're adding it differently to fit in the mix again.

I'm all for options, I just want to hear how it holds up after everyone's had theirs for a year in band contexts.
 
Budda said:
Someone on another forum has bought 8 of these speakers and this week released their own IR pack as well.

Going solely off their clips, it seems like it's meant for single-guitar bands or bands where both guitarists dial in similar tones. I want to hear the speaker in context from more players, myself.

"Everyone" wants to take away the spike from a V30, and then they're adding it differently to fit in the mix again.

I'm all for options, I just want to hear how it holds up after everyone's had theirs for a year in band contexts.
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Agreed. I don't know if this speaker will have a wide appeal outside metal players as they seem to be very focused on metal genres. I have to say that this IR pack doesn't have the V30 "move the spike" thing going on. It seems to have been "redistributed" as it were, not dark at all and so well balanced. I've never been this moved and impressed by an IR release, hoping the physical speakers will be as inspiring. Ill be sure to write a review once I have em and play em a while.

For a reference point, my go-to is the 2203, dialed in for 80s-2K metal tones, very Zakk oriented if I had to pidgeon-hole it, and the instant improvement in clarity alone was immediate. Any unwanted fizz I thought I was just gonna have to live with (and battled for so long) disappeared. They definitely cut through my mixes in all the right ways. Kristian and many others I listened to seem to be focused on more modern metal tones/styles, and they sound great, but in what I'd call a more classic metal guitar tone, at least the IR pack really shines and I'm hoping that translates to the physical.

I too wonder how it will all shake out after a year or so in the trenches. I'm generally a tried-and-true mindset guy, but after actually playing the IR pack I decided to take the plunge. I'm hoping I will be rewarded. ;) :cool: 🤘
 
Definitely not the holy grail for me. I think they sound good, and I very much like the IR’s in the video above from the other john Browne much more than the ones in kohle’s pack personally….and they are free. Kohle went too far with low and hi pass on his pack, I wish he would’ve left them alone, but oh well…

There’s a reason why v30s work and sound great in a mix, and it’s often the part everyone always wants to try and take away.
 
VESmedic said:
Definitely not the holy grail for me. I think they sound good, and I very much like the IR’s in the video above from the other john Browne much more than the ones in kohle’s pack personally….and they are free. Kohle went too far with low and hi pass on his pack, I wish he would’ve left them alone, but oh well…

There’s a reason why v30s work and sound great in a mix, and it’s often the part everyone always wants to try and take away.
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That's a shame, because they're incredible for me. Purely subjective though, one mans trash and all.

Curious. You bought and tried Kohle's then and compared them to the free IRs A/B? Or is this opinion based on trying the free ones, and comparing YT review(s) and other's stated opinions of the ones you have to pay for?

I use V30's where they're applicable and have been for decades, live and in 1000's of mixes. A V30 is a fantastic speaker but it doesn't always work any more than another. Purely dependent upon what your goal is.

Also, you mentioned "everyone" often wants to take away the "part" of a V30 that works in a mix? Which "part" specifically is that? Given the context, the implication is that this "part" is deficient in the Karnivore IRs? If so, where, specifically?

Lastly, what would the motivation for "everyone" wanting to take it away from their mixes? Are you implying "everyone" doesn't understand what a proper mix is?
 
I tried free Karnivore ir pack and it sounds just good. Never was happy with V30 in their own despite many of my favorite records was recorded on them, but Karnivores is something different. No desire to tweak something with them, but just only play
 
Alex M said:
I tried free Karnivore ir pack and it sounds just good. Never was happy with V30 in their own despite many of my favorite records was recorded on them, but Karnivores is something different. No desire to tweak something with them, but just only play
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Very nice! I haven't given any others a spin yet because I am still mixing & matching the paid IRs purely for fun! They all sound so good!

IR files aside, t really says something special about the Karnivore speaker itself that we have 2-3 different IR versions now, paid and free, just in this thread alone and they seem to bring positive vibes, some more than others. That is a good sign the Karnivore is filling a need.

100% agreed, at least on the paid version, they're all good and just sound so good right out of the gate. Ill have to grab some of these free versions and see how they all stack up!
 
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