Quilter “Steelaire” review “solid state sucks”

[tom anderson]

https://youtu.be/x9TYCes1lTU

This is a clever take on amps. The Steelaire pops up about 1/2 way through.
I just got my Steeelaire used and think it’s the best steel amp I’ve ever owned. I was totally a tube guy before this amp. I don’t know why he quit making them but I’m glad I found one.
This reviewer is really funny.

[Jon Light (deceased)]

Josh Scott is an entertaining character. I've watched many of his videos. His self-deprecating style works well. To his credit, he understands that by working in admiration of and cooperation with many of his competitors, everybody stands to gain --- the rising water lifts all ships thing.
I'll watch this a little later.

[Bill McCloskey]

Best "negative" review I've seen.

[ajm]

If you want more from JHS, try searching for some of their shootout videos.

They compare a cheap/clone/foreign copy/knockoff against a rare vintage/boutique pedal.

[Donny Hinson]

Having a guitar player review a steel amp is like having a fisherman review golf clubs.

Yeah, you hold both of them in your hands and wave them around, but the similarities sorta end there.

~

[Jack Stoner]

Having a guitar player review a steel amp is like having a fisherman review golf clubs.

Yeah, you hold both of them in your hands and wave them around, but the similarities sorta end there.

~

That was the dumba$$ thing Quilter did. The demo for the Steelaire on the Quilter site was a lead guitar not a steel.

[Ken Metcalf]

I used to have a Peavey Nashville 112 that was covered with fake alligator hide.
When I bought it, the Peavey logo had been removed and they have a vent on top.
Took it out to a blues jam and several people came up and commented on how good it sounded.
The jam leader guy said Man! you just can't Beat a good tube amp. When I told him it was a Peavey he was like, But with tubes, right? LOL
Sometimes people listen with their eyes.
I am glad we steel players never are this foolish.

[Graham Bland]

Jack, your assessment on Quilter’s demo on the website with guitar only is spot on correct! Quilter doing that was a huge mistake!

[Dave Mudgett]

I've been a primarily tube guitar amp guy for over 50 years. I still love my old tube amps - I have a bunch and most of them aren't going anywhere.

But there are and always have been some excellent solid-state amps. For decades, guitarists and tube amp snobs have been dissing the old solid-state Vox amps like the Cambridge Reverb, Berkeley, Viscount, Beatle, Super Beatle, and so on. But they're really good-sounding amps that were on a surprising number of records and stages in that era. There were so many promoting them, but they really did get used. Similarly, the Roland Jazz Chorus 120 has been a great amp with an unmistakable (and IMO, impossible to truly replicate) sound since it was introduced in the 1980s.

There were a bunch of really good Peavey solid-state amps in the 1980s. Bandit/Bandit-65, Special/Special-130, Studio Pro/Pro-40/Pro-50, and even the little Backstage and Backstage Plus. OK, not a Plexi Marshall - more in the Fender wheelhouse. But I sometimes have to think about whether I'm gonna use one of these Peaveys (and not have to worry about tubes and other stuff) or my (gasp!) tweed Deluxe, Deluxe Reverb, or whatever. My vintage tweed-police friends often shake their heads. But nobody has whined about the sound yet. I've thought about shoe-horning one of these into a Fender cabinet just to shut people up.

I think the Quilter stuff has raised the bar yet again. The Mini 101 Reverb and Tone Block 201 and 202 are really excellent. I haven't tried the Mach series yet. I'm sure they're excellent, but the little 4 pound Tone Blocks into a small, lightweight 1x12" cab can cut pretty much any steel gig for me. I tend to like such super-clean speakers for pedal steel that I like to bring a relatively small guitar amp, with commensurately more pliable speaker(s), along for guitar. The good news is that none of them break my back. Geez, I've recorded straight out of the TB 201 straight into a board. Sounds fine, for pedal steel anyway.

I think a lot of guitar players are listening with their eyes. My experience, anyway. Cachet does not make tone.

[Bob Carlucci]

I used to have a Peavey Nashville 112 that was covered with fake alligator hide.
When I bought it, the Peavey logo had been removed and they have a vent on top.
Took it out to a blues jam and several people came up and commented on how good it sounded.
The jam leader guy said Man! you just can't Beat a good tube amp. When I told him it was a Peavey he was like, But with tubes, right? LOL
Sometimes people listen with their eyes.
I am glad we steel players never are this foolish.

Yeah, that wasn't my experience.. I had a 112, and one day tried AB'ing it alongside the Silverface Bassman w/ a single 15 Weber California I was gigging with. Was thinking about streamlining my gigging gear. Both guitar and steel... The 112 sounded like a generic SS amp, while that Bassman had beautiful warmth, complexity, and a "sweetness" that could never be attained with a solid state amp. If the new ss amps can sound like a tube Fender amp I think that maybe they finally got what musicians want.. I have yet to hear any ss amp that could match the harmonic richness of a good tube amp.. personally I don't think it can be done.

I don't think of myself as having that great an ear, but even hybrids such as Music Man, or the Peavey Classics with SS preamps can't get the sound of a good all tube amp\, not even very close.. I'll go as far as to say, there are a lot of amps that ARE all tube that use SS rectifiers that have a sterile sound... Just something about amps that are 100% tube driven including rectifier that just sound "right " to me, guitar steel, bass, whatever....