Tone King Imperial Mark II
This is the colorway that I picked up. Other options are available
Hello folks. This is not a newly released amplifier, it is simply new to me. I was in my local guitar shop when the original owner traded it in towards a Boogie Mark V 5/25 and Gibson SG, and I asked to check it out before it went out on the floor.
More debt for me, as even after a couple of hours, I have realized that I am going to buy it.
According to their excellent manual, Tone King does not just put out new products because they can, they only do so when there is a reason to do so. The Imperial was originally built to replicate the heralded Blackface Fender Deluxe Reverb along with the renowned Fender Tweed amps. I like old school Fender tube amps a lot, and need another amp like my cat needs a laser rifle (although I suspect that the cat would really LIKE having a laser rifle) but I do not have a Deluxe Reverb (tweeds do exist around here) and, well you know…
About The Imperial Mark II
The Imperial Mark II builds on the platform of the first release with more functions. It is a two channel amplifier with both a rhythm and lead channel. The lead channel allows for more overdrive sooner and you can match volume if you wish and quickly pop back and forth with the supplied footswitch. Where the rhythm channel offers bass and treble, the lead channel offers only a general tone pot as well as a pot called mid-bite. In the off position, the difference between channels is a very light overdrive, but my turning the mid-bite up, you hear a definitive punch being added to the midrange for fine granular control of the overdrive tone. The amplifier is hand built according to the documentation.
This is a 20 watt tube amplifier with 12AX7s in the preamp and 6V6s in the power amp section. In the world of 200w Class D amplifiers needing to be turned up, let me just say that after 2 on the volume pot, this amp is LOUD. In fact, in my living room where I conducted my play tests (saves trying to make space for the amp in the guitar room in case I don’t like something) a setting of 1 was too loud in my home shared with my family.
Which brings me to a superb feature of the Imperial Mark II.
It includes Tone King’s highly respected Iron Man II attenuator, built right in. This is a proper attenuator, not simply a resistor dump and delivers a true reactive load along with Fletcher Munson volume compensation circuitry that preserves tonality as attenuation is increased. The Iron Man II attenuator on its own sells for over $1000 here in Canada, so having this built into this amp helps balance out the high price of the amp. The attenuator offers multiple positions that allow you to increase the volume knob setting without summoning the police or shattering the windows. What is particularly neat, in my opinion, is that you can set the attenuator to only apply to the lead channel with no impact on the rhythm channel. I think that if I were using very low output single coils, like the Fralin Pure 54’s in my green Strat, this would be useful, and I will be doing that in the coming days. My initial test guitar is a custom build Tom Anderson Guitarworks S Type, with an HF3+ humbucker and an SC2 single coil in the middle and neck positions and these pickups are definitely hotter than typical.
The single 12” speaker is a custom built Eminence with a ceramic magnet. In the documentation, Tone King talks about the work that they undertook in getting the right speaker in the right cabinet with construction and materials to deliver the goods.
If you are a gigging musician and are willing to carry this expensive piece of kit with you, your back will be fine for a while at least as it only weighs about 36 pounds. I know that being Canadian I should be quoting kilograms, but I am old and think in pounds.
The Imperial Mark II also includes a tube driven long spring reverb. I like it a lot as while it can give you surf depth, you have a lot of granularity in the range. In that regard I find it like my Fender limited series Blues Junior. I found in that room my base Reverb position is about 4 on the dial, so lots of room if I need it, but also available to remain subtle. It sounds brilliant and uses a 12AT7 to run the reverb.
Tremolo usually makes me nauseous. The Imperial Mark II has a bias based tremolo which is much more subtle than the optical tremolo in my blackface Fender Twin Reverb. This makes the tremolo usable for me as it doesn’t give a headache or nausea and has great levels of fine granular control. I surprised myself by having the tremolo on for over 25 minutes, just jamming along with pleasure. As you would expect by now, this is a tube driven tremolo. I am very impressed.
The elephant in the room is the cost of the amplifier. The version in the black with cream colourway that I have has an MAP of $3399 CAD and if you want one of the other colourways, such as cream, or turquoise (it’s very pretty), or brown/beige, the MAP goes to $3549 CAD. The head only version of the amp is $3099 CAD regardless of colourway that you choose. Standalone 1x12 speaker cabinets have a MAP of $809 CAD.
Playing Experience
I plugged the Anderson into the board in the living room and set volume levels. My initial tests were with all the pedals bypassed and candidly I was quite blown away by the tone. It is indeed an interesting cross between a Deluxe Reverb and a Tweed and as far as I am concerned gets both right. With hot pickups, I had to be gentle on the rhythm channel as the pickups in the Anderson drive pretty hard.
Switching to a Gretsch 5222 really brought the twang as expected. The lead channel is awesome, and that mid-bite control is terrific. No boost or dirt pedal needed so far and with a very wide range of tones available. Yes, this amp costs a lot more than my recent tests, and sounds it all the time.
I then moved on to my Les Paul Axcess. It’s not my number one Les Paul as it is very lightweight and sounds different from my others, but again, the Imperial Mark II was great on the clean channel, and expectedly prone to a little breakup like a tweed if the guitar volume was at 10. Rolled off to 8 as is my general position for chords on humbuckers it was marvelously open and rich. Switching in the drive channel, I had to tweak the Mid-Bite to find an appealing place and was able to do to without issue.
My final test was the one that separates great amps from the good. It’s a Rickenbacker 325/64. This is the John Lennon style model, albeit without the $3000 bump for Lennon’s silk-screened signature. It has three of the vintage style pickups and is the test for jangle. Typically I play my Ricks through my AC30 as that has been their happiest home and I was astounded at how great this low output and somewhat odd little guitar sounded on the clean channel. I did not find any issues on the dirt channel, it just didn’t fit what I felt motivated to play. Whilst I am no great guitar talent, the tone was extremely Beatle-esque.
As noted, the tube based reverb and tube based tremolo are superb, and I will reiterate that while I typically abhor tremolo, the tremolo in the Imperial Mark II is really controllable.
The footswitch (lead/rhythm, tremolo on/off) is built really tough and includes a suitably long TRS cable for connection. You can disconnect the internal 8 ohm speaker and use an external cabinet, but I see no reason to do so. It sounds terrific as it is. As much as I am comfortable with modelling and cabinet IRs, it’s been a while since I just plugged into an amp and it was great.
I mentioned that it’s loud and I am very pleased with the results from the built in Iron Man II attenuator. I have tried a number of high end attenuators and I find that the Iron Man II reduces overall volume without killing tone at least as well as the UA Ox that is permanently connected to my Marshall Silver Jubilee. I cannot say that for some others that I have tried, and even if an Imperial Mark II is not in your plans, but an attenuator is, you should give an audition to the standalone Iron Man II. Given my use cases, I would probably not buy an Imperial Mark II if it didn’t have the attenuator built in. It goes from off to loud very quickly and the attenuator gives a lot of control over attenuation levels. It starts at no attenuation, then -3dB, -9dB, -15dB, -24dB and -36dB which is a very useful set of working ranges.
Recording
The Imperial Mark II is a classic design so no DI output and no cabinet simulations. I’m ok with that, so my recording tests were done with a Shure SM57 on axis, right into an Apollo Solo. Because I did these outside of the guitar room, there was no Macintosh present, so I recorded from the Apollo into Adobe Audition. I could have used Ableton Lite or ProTools Lite, but I don’t know either program and was not in the mood to learn them for this purpose.
Summary
I am really impressed with this amplifier. I expected a lot less having experienced boutique amps that had boutique prices and boring tone. I was wrong in my preconceptions. The Imperial Mark II is absolutely brilliant. Yes it is expensive but let’s do a little math exercise here.
Suppose that you were to go out and buy a Fender ‘65 Deluxe Reverb amplifier. That amp has a MAP of $1899 CAD. If it were too loud for your use cases but you would not willingly sacrifice the tone, you could add an Iron Man II attenuator for $1099 for a total outlay of $2998. If you wanted the hand built Custom ‘64 Deluxe Reverb, it has a MAP of $3499 CAD, $100 more than the Imperial Mark II which includes the Iron Man II attenuator. Thus comparing apples and apples of nominally different species, the Tone King Imperial Mark II is not priced out of range, it’s actually very competitively priced. While that price may still put it out of range of many folks, those who would opt for the hand built Fender, would actually be behind the curve. I am not suggesting that the Fender amp is bad, I am saying that the Tone King Imperial Mark II is a far better choice for the dollar.
Thanks for reading and until next time, peace.
