Re: Anyone played a Valveking? Comments?
I own a ValveKing 1x12 combo. It was my first tube amp and was a good deal. I got a rather good clean tone, and I was able to get enough gain out of it to mask my sloppy playing with the stock crappy pickups on my first Ibanez. Honestly, I don't care much for the gain with higher-output pickups; it strikes me as too fizzy. However, the gain channel with the realtively lower-output stock pickups on my Wal-Mart strat-copy sounded nicely crunchy with the gain boost off. I'll second the comment about the EQ knobs not seeming to do much.
I do still sometimes play it though. Like I said the cleans are good, and IMO, a bit juicier than the ones I get from my Mesa/Boogie Nomad. The gain on the Valveking is a bit thin and fizzy but when I run it at the same time as the gain on my Nomad, the lows from the 4x12 I have the nomad using combining with the highs from the ValveKing made for an interesting sound, kinda tighter. By comparison, the ValveKing, with it's open back 1x12 has almost no lows at all. But to be fair, I *am* comparing an entry-level Peavey to a Mesa.
While not an awesome amp, you can upgrade it into something better. The speaker can be changed out, and Merceruy Magnetics makes a replacement choke and output tranny for it. NOS preamp and power tubes would probably make a world of difference too. But be mindful that for the money one would spend buying and upgrading a ValveKing, one could have purchased a much better amp to begin with.
All in all, it's a decent amp, but there are better options out there if one can save up a few more pennies.
