Tone King
Fat Sound Guitars and Mark Bartel of Tone King Amplifiers have been in business together since 1995 when Mark was still building the awesome looking and fantastic sounding Continental, piggy back amps with the mid-century inspired, TV style legs.
We've watched this company grow and have seen the amplifier line gradually evolved through many iterations.
Tone King's flagship, The Metropolitan, was released in 2009 and is a groundbreaking, amazing, dual channel amp with it's roots in the original Comet model which became the Meteor and then the Meteor 2. All of these models have sounded fantastic and each was groundbreaking in their own way upon release, but with the Metropolitan the evolutionary process is finally complete. We just don't see how the amp could be improved. Mark has taken everything he has learned in 20 years as an amp designer, added some very interesting circuitry twists and created a truly wonderful instrument with the Metropolitan.
Also available, due to popular demand, Mark has re-issued an older Tone King design called the Imperial. This amp is a bit more basic than the Metropolitan, but still offers a great dose of Americana sonic goodness with Tone King style, but at a lower price point.
Metropolitan 1x12" Combo |
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| MSRP: $2995.00 | FAT PRICE: $2995.00 | AVAILABILITY: In Stock |
| ADDITIONAL INFO: Free Shipping!! | ||
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The Metropolitan is a truly magical guitar amplifier with a sound all its own. The lightweight, resonant speaker cabinet is tuned and voiced as if it were a musical instrument unto itself, producing the perfect balance of warm, woody resonance and elastic feel, as well as power and punch. The ultra-pure signal path and automatically balanced and calibrated phase inverter give you an unusually effortless sustain, even on perfectly clean notes, and a bell-like clarity.
The Metropolitan is built to the highest standards of quality with only the finest materials. From the cabinetry, to the upholstering, to the electronic assembly and testing, each amp is entirely hand-built by designer Mark Bartel in his Baltimore, MD craft shop.
Not satisfied with using off-the-shelf parts, Mr. Bartel works with skilled fabricators to develop custom components such as transformers and speakers in order to craft his totally unique and musical creations to his exacting standards.
The revolutionary Phase-4 power control system gives you the ability to achieve the true sound and feel of an amp cranked up and driven into natural overdrive and power tube crunch, at any volume - even "bedroom" volume - by providing a usable output power range of 0.1W - 40W. Over the years, scores of approaches have been devised to achieve this end (master volumes, power scaling, attenuators, etc.). Tone King designer Mark Bartel has tried them all, but has never been sufficiently satisfied with any of them to consider including them in his designs - until he developed the Phase-4 power control system.
Tone King's breakthrough Phase-4 power control technology is light years ahead of these older approaches in its ability to retain not only the tone, but also the tactile feel of the amp's natural power tube overdrive, even at very low volume.
The Metropolitan has two distinct preamp channels - the Rhythm Channel and the Lead Channel. You can select between the two with either the front panel channel switch or the footswitch.
Input Gain Switch: The input gain switch controls the gain of the 1st stage of both preamps. This switch helps to tailor the overall gain of the amp to match the gain of the amp to the output level of your guitar's pickups.Rhythm Channel:
The Rhythm channel includes a 2-position "bright" switch as well as Volume, Treble, and Bass controls.
Lead Channel:
The Lead Channel includes Volume, Tone, and Mid-Bite controls.
Reverb:
The Metropolitan's all new single-knob reverb circuit has been meticulously tuned to be the best sounding reverb circuit of all Tone King models. The reverb control on the front panel sets the reverb level for both preamp channels. In addition, the reverb may be turned on and off with the footswitch.
Output Power Controls:
Two output power controls are included on the front panel - one for each preamp channel. They allow adjustment of the output power from 0.1W to 40W, continuously. Having separate power controls for each channel allows you to set the amp for a clean tone with lots of headroom on the Rhythm channel, and an overdriven tone on the Lead channel, while matching the volume level when you switch between channels.
Features:
Fat Sound Award for Sonic Excellence! |
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Imperial 112 |
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| MSRP: $1995.00 | FAT PRICE: $1995.00 | AVAILABILITY: Reservations Required |
| ADDITIONAL INFO: Reservations are recommended since these are pre-sold 98% of the time we receive a shipment | ||
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The venerable Tone King Imperial is back! A stunning amplifier with amazing Fender Black Face tones on the Rhythm channel and gloriously thick and harmonically complex gain tones on the Lead channel. Reasonable volume and low weight make this amplifier ideal for around the house or small club use. The reverb is super dense and lush and the tremolo circuit is as mind altering as ever. This model was the very first Tone King amp ever produced and was originally available from 1993-1997. Featuring a 20 watt, dual 6V6 tube power section and a single 12" Tone King "33" speaker. |
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