Quilter Steelaire Amp Review

[Jim Palenscar]

Pat Quilter has been in the business via QSC Audio a long time and knows what it takes to make them road worthy and apparently has done another great job here. They do have XLR outs so can be taken straight into the board.

[Dick Wood]

Thanks Jim but what I was asking is can the internal speaker be muted so that you could play through the FOH and not the amps speaker?

Thanks

[Steve Spitz]

Thanks for clearing that up Jim. I was hoping it was like the WEBB remote reverb. It's nice to add a bit more of something on the fly, compared to on or off. Still, a nice feature , and likely a great amp.

[Marco Schouten]

Thanks Jim but what I was asking is can the internal speaker be muted so that you could play through the FOH and not the amps speaker?

Thanks

You can by unplugging the internal speaker. It's very easy. Quilter confirms that this doesn't cause any problems.

[Dick Wood]

Thanks Marco, I never considered disconnecting the speaker as I didn't think it would be a good idea for the power amp section.

[Chris Parks]

No problem there. Quilter amps are flexible so you can plug pretty much any extension cab in or just unplug them altogether for direct in only operation without causing harm to the amplifier.

[Dick Wood]

Well there ya go then. Thanks Chris. It should be here Friday and I'll give it a good work out next time the band gets together.

[Chris Parks]

Enjoy Dick, don't be shy if you have questions. You can get me at chris@quilterlabs.com or just call me on my cell. 714-773-2853
Either way, you will get a quick reply.

[Dick Wood]

Well I just got it and my initial thoughts sitting here in my music room are that I like what I hear so far. It's very quite,the internal reverb is nice and doesn't have that metallic sound that some do. I have been using a TC Electronics Hall of Fame reverb but think it will stay home from now on after hearing this one.

It gets very loud and stays clean when I punch up the volume to a pretty stout level. I will have to experiment with EQ in a live setting to see what I think but I don't see any problems so far as the controls have good response.

The amp cover is very well made and looks great too.

For us older guys, the weight of this amp is absolutely wonderful in that I could pick it up with one finger. What a big difference from my 57 pound Nashville 1000!

I mentioned this before and but the only thing that would make this one of the best new amps on the market would be to dump the tremolo for a delay as this amp appears to be aimed at steel players.

Well the wife just walked in and told me to get some gigs to pay for it so I have to get busy.

[Henry Matthews]

Congratulations Dick on the purchase of a very nice amp. The more I use mine, the better I like it. Also the tone of the amp is the same from low to high volume and it must really be efficient because it just barley gets warm after a 3 hour set and we were punching pretty loud. The cover is really nice.

[Dick Wood]

Update: I used it last night and it rocks! I used the XLR out to the board and it's extremely quite and clean. Tried the 9 volt jack to my delay unit and it worked fine so no more additional wall wart to drag around. Internal reverb was very good too. Won't need to bring the Hall of fame stomp box any longer.

I really liked the tone I was getting at low or high volume settings. The band played pretty loud which I hate but this amp kept up without any problem. There was no breakup at high volume levels and it doesn't have a harsh sound at all.

One thing I wish they had done is put the power cord jack on the underside of the chassis as it sticks out just a little bit too much. I'm not crazy about unplugging the power cord when I put the cover on.

I mentioned the weight before and I want to say how nice it was to be able to lift it with one hand and put it in my trunk. I can literally carry the amp and steel if I needed to do so.

Well I can't wait until the next gig as I'm feeling like a kid with a new toy.

Pat Quilter and the gang have hit a home run with this new amp.

[Dave Bertoncini]

Got my Steelaire Saturday. I had ordered one and ironically one showed up here on Craigslist too at a price I couldn't pass on, so I ended up with two. I run my delay on one and just the reverb on the other. They were very easy to dial in...I started with Albert Svenddal's settings and that was near perfect for me. I ended up cutting the tone on the reverb to 3 and the high mids to 4. The lows have the liveliness I was looking for without having the harshness on the highs.

[Dick Wood]

What pickups are you using? I'm playing a Williams with 710's and tried Albert's settings but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. I like the fact that the highs don't sound harsh like my Peavey's did.

[Dave Bertoncini]

Dick...I have Telonics 409 Pickups on my D-10 Infinity. I also like the fact that the highs aren't harsh. I was using two Nashville 112's and never could get a tight bottom end without harsh highs

[David Wren]

My stock pickups on my '96 custom Carter U12 sound simply stellar through my Quilter "Steelaire"... and the direct out to the board carries a real "speaker" quality" to the PA... hope that is a good description.

My Wife of 41 years said last Sat. night "Wow, what a great amp!"

Now I leave the rest to you electronics educated steelers...but I'm good with a "wow!" from Patty

Chris, please pass on my compliments to the rest of the crew at Quilter Labs!

Oh yeah... did I mention 35 lbs. at the end of the night

[chris ivey]

how could you be married to patty for 41 if she's only 39?

[Jim Eaton]

It was one of those "arranged" deal's!!!
JE:-)>

[Michael Robertson]

For those of us that are in or approaching our Copper years (not so Golden) weight is an issue.
But I’ll be darn if I am going to give up quality tone for light weight.
I found the Quilter MicroPro 200 is what I enjoy using for all situations.
Tone, power, sustain, no degrading of tone with volume great all around.
I purchase the additional 12” cab and together these are great for pedal steel.
I won’t bore you with the details of the amp but I recommend you check them out at Quilter Amps.

[Gino Cecchetto]

Update: I used it last night and it rocks! I used the XLR out to the board and it's extremely quite and clean. Tried the 9 volt jack to my delay unit and it worked fine so no more additional wall wart to drag around. Internal reverb was very good too. Won't need to bring the Hall of fame stomp box any longer.

I really liked the tone I was getting at low or high volume settings. The band played pretty loud which I hate but this amp kept up without any problem. There was no breakup at high volume levels and it doesn't have a harsh sound at all.

One thing I wish they had done is put the power cord jack on the underside of the chassis as it sticks out just a little bit too much. I'm not crazy about unplugging the power cord when I put the cover on.

I mentioned the weight before and I want to say how nice it was to be able to lift it with one hand and put it in my trunk. I can literally carry the amp and steel if I needed to do so.

Well I can't wait until the next gig as I'm feeling like a kid with a new toy.

Pat Quilter and the gang have hit a home run with this new amp.

It's just a standard IEC power cable. Check the link below, Maybe one of those will help you out.

http://tinyurl.com/z8bwwbl

[Garry Vanderlinde]

The thing I like about the Quilter is that no matter how you set the tone controls it still sounds good and fills the room. A "No-Brainer" for us brain-less. ha-ha

P.S. I have a heavily modded Blues Jr., a Peavey LTD 400 & Nashville 1000 for sale...cheap!

[Henry Matthews]

I'm the kind of guy that doesn't like hooking up a bunch of equipment like stomp boxes, rack units or anything like that and I also take pride in that I just plug straight into amp and get a good tone.
I have found two amps that I can do that with and be completely satisfied. One is the Quilter Steelaire and the other is a heavily moded Peavey LTD.

I see these players with all that rack stuff and boxes on their steel and all that and just looks like a lot of trouble to me. Don't get me wrong, most sound great but I'm too lazy to even use a Li'l Izzy, LOL

On our Opry show, I do use a Peavey Profex's unto a Nashville 400 but use it mostly for some of the effects like the dobro and chorus at times. It stays in place and I never have to move it so works for me ok.

Garry is correct, almost any setting on the Quilter sounds good and I use it on fiddle and Telly and really don't have to change settings from steel, maybe cut highs a little for fiddle.

[Billy Henderson]

I had a Nashville 1000 that died. Sent it to Peavey, plays like a brand new ons.

[Alan Percy]

I sold a Nashville 112 to buy a quilter. Bad decision.. Now I am looking for another Nashville to replace the quilter that I'll be selling. To my ears it has not enough bottom end response. Either sell it or try some other pickups.

[Jack Stoner]

I'm using a Quilter Steelaire Rack with an Eminence EPS-15C. No problems with highs/mids or low end. I also have a NV112 (my backup amp) but nothing like the "tubeish" sound of the Steelaire. I like the direct out for recording, so close to a miced sound that its not worth it to actually use a mic.

My settings:
Bass 7
Lo and Hi Mid 5
Treble 3

[GaryL]

I have the Steelaire Combo amp as well as the rack mount Steelaire head. Recently put 15" Travis Toy Eminence speakers into both of my old Peavey 115 cabinets. These sound fantastic with the Steelaire amp head. I enjoy the sound of the amp's reverb to the point that I stopped using delay altogether. As for the low mid setting, I have it set nearly all the way off and the high mid set for "bite." I prefer this amp to anything that I have used in the past 30 years.
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