DestroyAllGuitars Tone King Amplifier company, Amplification, Amps, Amplifiers, Amp

~ Tone King Amplifier Company ~

Designer Mark Bartel elevates guitar amplifier design to an art form unto itself, with a craft-based approach steeped in creative design, competent engineering know-how, and fine hand craftsmanship.

Mark graduated from Clarkson University with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1988, and has nearly 30 years of practical experience in design and construction of vacuum tube and solid state analog circuitry. In addition, he has nearly 30 years of experience in fine woodworking, furniture making, and guitar building, and 25 years of experience playing guitar.

Mark approaches his designs with a craft based approach, recognizing the merits of classic amplifier designs, but endeavoring to develop his own unique creations in which each element of the design is critically scrutinized and incessantly tweaked to perfection. He believes that good design is a lot more than simply applying engineering and mechanical know-how, but also includes recognition of the importance of some subtle factors that are hard to quantify – the heart, soul, and magic of a good design.

Recognizing that the real magic in a design comes from these subtle factors, Mark has spent thousands of hours in research over the years to develop an understanding of the tonal effect of things such as wood type, cabinet dimensions, grain direction, screw locations, baffle board attachment, coating type and thickness (for cabinet design), and things such as component brand, component location, and wire routing (for electronic design). He's built literally hundreds and hundreds of prototype speaker cabinets to optimize the overall tone, dispersion, sound image, and feel, to create the unique Tone King sound.

After many years of repairing vintage tube amplifiers and developing his own designs, Mark started the Tone King Amplifier Company in 1993 and began selling his first commercially available amplifier, the Imperial. The Imperial was an immediate success, and was highly regarded by respected players (including several A-list artists who still use these early Tone King amps).

Over the years, Mark has honed his craft and refined his work, as he produced a series of new models over the course of the past 16 years, including the Continental, Galaxy, Comet, Meteor, Meteor/II, and now the Metropolitan – the pinnacle of his life's work in guitar amplifier design.

Tone King Metropolitan

New for 2009, the Metropolitan is a truly magical guitar amplifier with a sound all its own. The lightweight, resonant speaker cabinet is tuned and voiced as if it were a musical instrument unto itself, producing the perfect balance of warm, woody resonance and elastic feel, as well as power and punch. The ultra-pure signal path and automatically balanced and calibrated phase inverter give you an unusually effortless sustain, even on perfectly clean notes, and a bell-like clarity...