Tone King Imperial Tube Preamp: 3 Tubes, 2 Effects, 1 Legendary Sound
Reverb, Tremolo and full stereo signal flow!
5,0 / 5,0 | 
OK, so this is by far one of the highlights of NAMM 2025: the Imperial Tube Preamp from Tone King. After the Friedman preamps, the Imperial has also been shrunk down to an amp-in-a-pedal. But that’s far from it.
Tone King Imperial Tube Preamp: Three Tubes
Let’s recap: in 2024, two preamp pedals from Friedman, IR-J, and IR-D, came onto the market, and in 2023 with the IR-X, the first Friedman-in-a-Box. Each pedal contained two preamp tubes, an IR loader, two channels, and separate boosts. And their sound was simply amazing.
The Imperial Tube Preamp seems to be built on the same architecture as the IR series, judging by the pictures from NAMM 2025. But there is so much more then an Imperial-in-a-pedal. Let’s start with the tubes: the Tone King pedal comes with three 12AX7s.
Behind the preamp sits a Synergy power amp, which commentators at TheGearPage suspect is a Z-Wreck model. This amp pushes the Imperial Tube Preamp’s sound and, above all, dynamic response up a notch towards blues heaven.
Spring Reverb and Tremolo: Tube-driven Imperial Effects
Does that mean that you get even more tube-heavy sound from the pedal? Not at all. Rather, the tremolo and spring reverb effects are driven by the third 12AX7. They incorporate nothing less than the effects section of the Imperial amp. And that, too, is tube-driven.
And, boy, does the Spring Reverb sound good when you listen to some of the demos from NAMM. It’s pretty close to the original. Due to the compact dimensions of the pedal, It can hardly be a real spring reverb at these dimensions (let’s wait for details). But tube spring reverb sound and tube tremolo with an Imperial amp sound? Sign me up!
For the reverb effect, you get controls for ‘Reverb’ for the reverb amount and ‘Dwell’, which probably sets the reverb time. For the tremolo effect, you get controls for ‘Depth’ for the intensity of the amplitude effect and ‘Speed’.
Power Draw and Connectivity
Three tubes will draw a lot of power, a full 1 A at 9 volts or 750 mA at 12 volts. As we’ve seen on the Friedman pedals, the Tone King Imperial Tube Preamp also has an IR loader.
This can be loaded with your own impulse responses via USB-C. On the connection side, there appears to be a stereo FX loop, stereo in, stereo out, as well as a stereo XLR output. There is also a MIDI-IN. This probably allows you to synchronize the speed of the tremolo with other pedals.
Rhythm and Lead
The pedal comes with two channels: Rhythm and Lead. As with the Friedman pedals, you can choose between three loaded IR cabs for each via a three-way switch.
The Rhythm Channel includes a two-band EQ (treble and bass), the Tone-King-typical attenuator, and the output volume as parameters. In addition to the same attenuator and volume dials, the Lead Channel includes the frequency-shaping parameters with ‘mid-bite’ and ‘tone’.
The three footswitches appear to serve dual functions. For example, both effects are assigned to the left switch, and the reverb is probably activated by holding it. The middle footswitch toggles between the two channels, but it also activates the FX loop. And the right footswitch sets the whole pedal to bypass or only the IRs.
How much does the Imperial Tube Preamp cost?
We’re still in the dark here. Given the number of additional features and the Tone Kind branding, it can’t be as inexpensive as the Friedman pedals, which cost around 500 euros. If you don’t want to wait, check out the OG Imperial MKII until the final details are available.
More on the Imperial Tube Preamp
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