The lead one is much more loud than the rhythm channel and with the mid bite control to zero changing from rhythm to lead is an interesting way to boost the sound with minimal change on the sound. The sound is really Fenderish on rhythm channel and more tweedy on the lead one. I have the Tone King Imperial in red color for 2 years now and I can confirm that this is a great amp. Technician Colin Barton working on Mark Knopfler's Tone King Imperial. The red Marshall cabinets were driven by two Reinhard amps. Another song to feature this fine amp is Hard Shoulder from Get Lucky (played on a Gretch 6120). I guess it is the ‘king of clean’ for him and that he hardly ever uses the second channel. On the last (2008) tour Mark Knopfler played his red Schecter Telecaster on the song Cannibals through the Tone King Imperial, his ’54 Stratocaster on the song Our Shangri-La, and his signature MK Strat on Postcards from Paraguay and True love will never fade. The recommended retail price for the Tone King Imperial is 1995 USD. The speaker is custom designed and labelled with ‘Tone King 33’ – manufactured by Eminence (who also built the speakers in most silver-face Fender amps in the 70ies and 80ies). The mid-bite adds a midrange peak and tightens the low end, controling the overdrive tone character that can be blended from Fender tweed to Marshall style. The second channel also features just three controls: volume, tone and mid-bite – so no bass and treble control here, just on a small Fender tweed amp from the 50ies. It will not surprise you that the reverb circuit uses the same two-spring reverb tank (acutronics) and the same tubes like Fender. Of course the spring reverb – a fundamental ingredient of the Fender sound – works for both channels (note that on Fender amps it only affects the second channel). A volume, treble and bass control is all that is required here. In fact you can read on the Tone King website that the rhythm channel aims for that Fender black-face sound. In fact it reminds me a lot of a black-face Fender Deluxe amp, which also has a similar layout and one 12″ speaker. The two channel make use of 12AX7 pre-amp tube, and one 12AT7 driving the reverb, just like Fender amps from the sixties or seventies.
The output power is about 20 watts, coming from two 6V6 tubes. The Imperial is a two-channel combo with reverb and tremolo.
Mark does all the woodworking, upholstery, and electronics assembly himself to have total control about the sound and quality of his products.
Tone King amps are built from selected quality parts by Mark Bartel in Baltimore. Knopfler’s second guitarist Richard Bennet also plays one. Everyone who has seen Mark Knopfler live on one of his recent tours might have notived that cool-looking turquoise combo amp next to Knopfler’s Marshall cabinets.
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