Fender Steel King(thot's on amp)

Chuck Brinkman · Post by **Chuck Brinkman** » 18 Dec 2011 5:20 am

Looking for a new amp.If you have played thru one let me know your pros and cons on the amp.Any advice on any other amps would be helpful.Thanks

Jani Peter Sandvik · Post by **Jani Peter Sandvik** » 18 Dec 2011 5:51 am

it is a good amp. but like all amps it has its plus and minuses.

+ lots of bottom
+ eq choises in few gnobs
+ tuner mute

- The speaker endurance CAN be a question
- to much reverb or no reverb at all

this is only my opinion so... lets se what the others has to say

Gary Lee Gimble · Post by **Gary Lee Gimble** » 18 Dec 2011 5:58 am

Looking for a new amp.

Out of the box new? They ain't made any 'mo

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 18 Dec 2011 6:05 am

Still loving my Steel King. My favorite steel amps of all time are the Steel King, Webb 6-14-E, Nashville 400 with factory mod and Walker Stereo steel. Any one of those is more than good enough for me, new or used.

The sounds at the top and the sound bites at the bottom of the page linked below were all done with a Fender Steel King:

http://gregcutshaw.com/Licks/Licks.html

Greg

Chuck Brinkman · Post by **Chuck Brinkman** » 18 Dec 2011 6:11 am

Thanks for the reply guys.I should of said "new to me".I am looking at a used one.Thanks

Craig A Davidson · Post by **Craig A Davidson** » 18 Dec 2011 6:38 am

Mine works good for me. AS far as the reverb issue, I use a Boss '63 reverb pedal. One nice feature is that I can send the signal to the board with the master on "0", and just get the signal in my in-ear monitors with no stage volume.

Mike Kowalik · Post by **Mike Kowalik** » 18 Dec 2011 9:20 am

The speaker that comes from Fender is a piece of junk.Put a 1501 or 1502 Black Widow in it and it's a huge improvement.

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 18 Dec 2011 9:26 am

I had one briefly when I worked for Johnny Bush. I liked the high end and mids quite well, but on C6 the bass notes would break up or "fart" too frequently. I suspect it was a speaker deficiency and would probably have been corrected by installing a Black Widow, but since I already had a couple Webbs, I sold the amp shortly after receiving it.

I did talk to Sam Marshall at Fender about the amp, and if I recall correctly, he allowed as how there were certain cost/performance compromises that had to be made by the bean counters at corporate.

If I were exclusively an E9 player, I would probably love the amp, but I honk on C6 and didn't want to go through the experimental phase. I know that Neil Flanz, predominantly an E9 dude, loves the sound of his FSK.

Chuck Brinkman · Post by **Chuck Brinkman** » 18 Dec 2011 11:35 am

Thanks for the imput.I play(I use that term pretty loosely)E9 only so this amp would probably work.Sounds like maybe the speaker may be a little suspect but I can change that if I need to.

Joseph Barcus · Post by **Joseph Barcus** » 18 Dec 2011 11:45 am

I wish I would have kept mine, I thought I had a bad amp for a while and after I got rid of it come to find out out it was my single coil pickups. dont know if I had really bad pick ups or the amp just didnt like single coil hum hum hum. but again wished I would have kept it now

Larry Robbins · Post by **Larry Robbins** » 18 Dec 2011 11:49 am

Use mine a lot and love it!

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 18 Dec 2011 12:45 pm

I've been using the Steel King for all pedal steel gigs for several years and I love it. A couple of recent changes... I just installed the new Eminence neo lightweight speaker and it reduced the weight of the amp by 15 pounds! Sounds real sweet too. I never liked the reverb in the Steel King, so I use a Holy Grail reverb. The SK reverb has a very long "tail" and the only way to reduce it is to reduce the amount of reverb, and then the sound is too dry. The Holy Grail's "spring" setting is just what I'm looking for. All in all a great steel amp, and IMO they will go up in value in future years.

Fred Thompson · Post by **Fred Thompson** » 18 Dec 2011 1:45 pm

Doug pretty much nailed it. I also installed the Eminance Neo, mainly to lighten the load, use an RV-3, and it's my main amp.

Mike Archer · Post by **Mike Archer** » 18 Dec 2011 5:26 pm

its a good amp I didnt care for the factory speaker
at all way to brittle....
I put a weber neo in mine and it sings loud and clear my favorite amp ive ever had great tone
its also about 15 pounds lighter with the weber neo
has some good things on it a mute/tuner out/
line out control and nice foot switch also
IMHO Mike

Charlie Powell · Post by **Charlie Powell** » 18 Dec 2011 6:03 pm

I concur with Mike, I have one set up exactly the same; great solid state amp with the Weber Neo. I didn't care for the stock speaker.

Before someone says "That speaker won't handle the power", it is not the standard Weber Neo. It is a custom order with a bass voice coil to handle the power. Special instructions are "NeoMag 15, 4, bass coil, cloth edge guitar cone, paper dome". Label on speaker reads "NeoMag15-x 4 ohm, 220 Watts"

Brad Malone · Post by **Brad Malone** » 18 Dec 2011 7:40 pm

Put a 1501 or 1502 Black Widow<<

Mike K., The Peavey 1000 amp comes with a 1501 Black Widow...I did install the 3 spring reverb..IMHO the 1501 Black Widow Speaker is great for Steel.

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 19 Dec 2011 6:06 am

I really enjoy playing through my Fender Steel King. I replaced the stock speaker with a SICA Neo, purchased from Ken Fox, and now the amp weighs just a few pounds more than a Nashville 112.

Great sounding amps.

Joe Smith · Post by **Joe Smith** » 19 Dec 2011 6:42 am

I never owned one, but at a jam session I played through one. To be honest, I didn't like it. I could never get it to sound right. Ended up getting my old standel out of the car and using it. But that standel has me spoiled LOL

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 19 Dec 2011 6:59 am

Here's my experience with putting a Peavey Black Widow in my Steel King:

http://gregcutshaw.com/Black%20Widow/Black%20Widow.html

Sounded OK but lost all of it's brilliance. Did solve the bottoming out of the C6 low notes. Ended up sounding a lot like a modded Nash 400. For C6 I have to give the Webb and Walker stereo steel setups the edge.

Greg

Brad Malone · Post by **Brad Malone** » 19 Dec 2011 7:46 pm

Greg, I'm sure you know this but I'll mention it again, all these Black Widow speakers need a little breakin time..they actually do sound better after you break them in..IMHO

Keith Poteat · Post by **Keith Poteat** » 20 Dec 2011 11:17 am

Always loved my Steel King. Just too heavy for an old man. This was my solution(hope this picture comes through)It actually has a deeper sound without the amp in the cabinet.

The Steel Guitar Forum

Fender Steel King(thot's on amp)

Fender Steel King(thot's on amp)

amp

Steel King.....

its a good amp

Black Widow..all the way.

Break in time