NAD: Tone King Sky King

[Ben Randolph]

I know this is a place of Fractal love, and we all have a bunch of awesome amp and cab models in our black boxes, but there's something to be said for the simplicity and vibe of real tubes.

I'd been itching for a real hand-wired tube amp for a while. Now that my AxeFX is mostly screwed into my studio desk, I thought I'd be on the lookout for something that I could grab and go, but also give me that classic Tweed and/or Blackface tone.

I found a local seller on Craigslist who was selling a *beautiful* 1968 Fender Princeton Reverb (not reissue). He had had it fully restored and it was glorious. Well, we traded emails and I felt good about the deal. The price was a bit higher than other Silverfaces I've seen for sale, but it was in such pristine condition I was willing to pay his price.

I was 2 minutes from getting into my car and driving 6 miles to the seller’s house to pick up the amp. Suddenly, I got a call from him telling me he had a “family emergency” and would have to reschedule.

Well, damn!

I took him at his word and figured he had family issues that took priority over an amp sale. As a family man myself, I understood completely. Well, in a followup email admitted that the “family emergency” was a fight with his wife when she found the repair bill for the amp to bring it back to a fully restored state! She told him he’d lose too much money on the sale. So, he reneged on the deal!

What is it with Craigslist people??? Please, don’t agree to a deal with me and then renege on it!!!!

Lame!!!!!!

My wife, sweetie that she is, knew that I was eyeing the Tone King Sky King. She reminded me that The Guitar Sanctuary in McKinney, TX was open for a couple of more hours. She said that rather than be pissed off, I should go there and get the amp of my dreams! So I did! I’m a Tone King Sky King owner! And a beauty she is! Check out the pics!

 

[Sixstring]

Cool little amp!

 

[Ben Randolph]

After spending an afternoon with the Sky King, I can honestly say that I don't think this amp is capable of producing a bad tone. Cool ideas went into the design. Pentode mode gets you that sweet blackface tone. Ultralinear gets into Supro territory. The mid-bite control on the lead channel can push this amp into a classic crunch, and turned up all the way can get into early Marshall territory.

The two Ironman attenuators are awesome. They do not seem to color the tone at all when engaged, other than to let you tweak the overall output to taste.

Reverb and Tremelo are fantastic, too!

This amp is a definite keeper!

 

[BillyZeppa]

"Sky King" - right out of the sixties. And so is that curly cord - cool!

 

[sam]

I just looked this up on the Tone King website. Looks like a great amp! Nice amount of power, great speaker choice, nice features.

 

[Ben Randolph]

I just spent some quality time with the Sky King at my tone hound guitar teacher's house. He owns a Friedman Marsha and a '69 Princeton Reverb. Two "holy grail" tones, in my opinion. The Sky King performed admirably next to these pinnacles of tone. That reminds me, I should really try doing some tone matches. The Sky King can do blackface as well as Marshall tones very well. The secret is that Ultralinear/Pentoid mode selection.

The Sky King's speaker is new and needs to be broken in. I'll have to play it often and loudly. Once the speaker fully breaks in, I'm sure it will sound even sweeter!