Tone King Imperial Tri-Tube Preamp

The guys at Andertons TV were right. This is phenomenal. It sounds so good and it sounds like you are playing an actual amp (never played the real combo though). I am on the lead channel for slightly overdriven and extremely touch responsive sound – man it is so good, I've never sounded better. There has to be something about those tubes, it really has... Forget quad cortex and don't let be fool (like I were) with the digital IR's – it is actually the main reason why it is so good. I went strictly analog before (Tech 21, Quilter) and the digital IR's are simply better sounding. Can you feel it? Absolutely not. It feels immediate and the .ms latency is like your amp being on the ground next to you. The feeling, organic-ness and warmth this is giving is unbelievable – the proof is that every time I pick guitar for "just a few minutes", suddenly two hours are gone. This is it!!! The only downsides are "Made in China" and the stereo tremolo – the panning effect is so hard you got seasick in your headphones with deeper settings. I would appreciate a mono (harmonic optioned ideally) trem instead. But I can live without trem, I have it as always-on at a very subtle and slow setting to spice it up a little bit during a long chords. I can't be more happy with my sound, this truly let my fingers speak – I sound like me!!!!

For years, I have been using digital amps - Helix Native and Neural Plini X. This time, I wanted to do a pedalboard with no screens, no laptop, and What You See Is What You Get - to help my creativity. The Toneking Imperial Preamp fits excellently into this concept - easy to dial in tone, stereo FX return, built-in stereo reverb and tremolo.

Playing it feels.. easy. The saturation feels full range and it just makes me happy. In the control app you can switch some things - for example turn the pedal to mono (that could be useful for some), load your own IRs (did not need to do it), MIDI mapping, FW update, and a few other things. You then save the settings to the pedal, and don't have to connect your laptop ever again. I am running the pedal on second cabs, lowcut to the "most cut" setting, and Bypass lock (what a great feature!!). You can also select if you want trails of the Reverb in the control app.

If you like the Fender Amp feel and play in a band with IEMs and silent stage - I think this is perfect for you. You could run it with another amp, but did not try that yet.