Quilter Steelaire Pro Amplifier Review



I bought this Quilter Steelaire Pro amp in late October of 2014 from AMS (American Musical Supply). CLICK HERE! to see the amp as listed on the AMS web site. I contacted AMS and was able to work out a deal. AMS includes a free 12 month extended warranty.

Quilter offes a "Steelaire Legmout Controller" CLICK HERE! for a list price of $149 but I passed on that. You can wire up your own foot switch with just the buttons and style of box you like using the instructions posted by Quilter CLICK HERE! or you can reference the wiring diagram I made. CLICK HERE to see my wiring diagram!.

Like most people I agonized greatly over this decision. Should I buy the Steelaire Pro or Combo or perhaps the Walker Stereo Steel (2 speakers yippee!) or just stay with my Fender Steel King? I have had good luck in the past with the Steel King, a Webb 6-14-E, twin Peavey Nashville 400's (factory modded) and a bit less success with the Peavet Nashville 112 and Fender Twin Reverb amps. At many of the steel guitar shows I've been at, the Walker Stereo Steel amp always stood out as having excellent power, projection, tone and coverage. I've tried a bunch of tube preamps to try to "warm up" the sound but it seems that almost all of the tube sound I've come to love for harmonics and compression comes from the tube power section including the tube rectifier sag and high power tubes reacting with the speaker (and not from the tube preamp). This time however I was opting for a lighter more compact setup. You can see links below for my review of other amps with pedal steel and this one, like those, are really just at home, in my basement or studio kinds of reviews. You really need to try these amps out for yourself to decide if they work for your style of music and setup and on a real stage setting. Your selection and preference of guitar, pickups, cords, effects, amp placement, foot volume type, playing style, weight and price preferences, whether you mic the amp and a lot more factors are involved in how your sound comes out.

Click here to view the Quilter Steelaire Owner's manual.



Bench Testing?

Perhaps I should have put this amp on this bench with a dummy speaker motor load and hook it up to the HP Network Analyzer. Then I could report on transient, phase and frequency response and check the total harmonic and intermodulation distortion. I could also measure the maximum power output and see how it handles clipping at the 200 watt output point giving some insight into the secret sauce. Even as an engineer I've all but lost interest in those specs and measurements. None of those ever seemed to help quantify my like or dislike of an amp's tone! But I would be nice to know at least two answers from the bench. First, how does it handle poor AC line power conditions (low voltage, over voltage, spikes etc)? Most modern switch mode power supplies are immune to these power line problems and I would assume that is the case with this Quilter amp. Second how does the gain of this amp compare to the gain of a typical Fender Steel King or twin Reverb or Nashville 400? If the gain is too low then the average player's setup will not be able to drive the amp's output to 200 watts. This is very important because we all know that the traditional steel and guitar amps have enough gain to drive the output to full rated power with an average guitar setup. Otherwise one will never be able to get 200 watts RMS out of this amp. Most guitar pickups just don't produce a one volt peak to peak line input voltage and the majority of amps have enough gain to deal with this. Maybe at a later point I will investigate these key issues or perhaps I can include user's experiences in this review at a later point.

In case your're interested, here's some links to other reviews and amp sound samples I've produced:




There are quite a few pictures below. Click on them to see them full size or at least sized to a browser window. Click on the picture again if needed to zoom in even more! After taking and reviewing these pictures a few interesting design details became apparent.

  • I included pics of my existing Fender Steel King setup for later comparision to the Quilter in the same setting
  • The sound sample recordings were made with the mic as pictured
  • A 9 VDC power cord is included!
  • The carrying handle is heavy duty, has a comfortable grip and can be pressed downward to lay flat against the top of the amp
  • Workmanship as far as I can see is flawless
  • There are two slots in the top of the speaker cab for wires to feed through. Simple but a nice touch!
  • A single simple red thumb screw secures the rack amp to the speaker cabinet. The thumb screw is not retained so it'd be easy to misplace!
  • The power cord locks in place at the amp receptacle!
  • The power amp rack comes with 4 rubber feet so it can be safely placed on any surface without marring it
  • The speaker cabinet makes a nice extension cabinet as removing the power amp does not uncover any cabinet holes
  • The speaker cab has 4 rubber feet, and no casters. Casters are probably not needed due to the light weight and in fact would add weight if they were there!
  • The cover is attractive, super heavy duty, plush AND has a velcro flap covered pocket on the back!
  • I pictured the amp next to a Fender Steel King and a Princeton Reverb from all angles for a size reference that msot people can relate to. These amps are shown from all angles and the Steel King is shown with and without casters
  • With my amp stand the amp support brackets do not rest against the amp cabinet. I added a brace as shown in the pictures to stop the amp from tipping backwards. It would be nice if the back amp cross piece was lower or if another backpiece was added to make it compatible with common amp stands. I didn't try the amp on a chair to see if this was a concern there.


    • Review Summary

    This is truly a great amp! My current amp stable includes a Fender blackface Vibro-Champ, silver face Princeton Reverb and a Fender Steel King. I have previously owned every Fender tube amp made, every Peavey steel amp and many boutique amps like the Webb 6-14-E and the Evans FET 500 LV. Listen to the sound samples closely! This amp can cover all the sounds of the Steel King, Webb 6-14-E and the Princeton Reverb for pedal steel, guitar and fiddle. It doesn't quite have the super warm class A tube sound of the Vibro-Champ but how versatile is a Vibro-Champ for use with all these instruments? With various adjustments I was able to get a warm but clear tone from the very lowest to the very highest C6 and E9 notes. Not a trace of harshness or shrill tone on the high notes. The reverb's three controls can be adjusted to get a Fender tube style spring reverb or a lusher digital hall effect reverb. I can now ditch the external reverb stomp box, add a delay pedal patched into and located inside the amp (I only use one delay setting and only on slow songs) and just plug my steel/volume pedal direct to amp. The bass response to transient notes was very tight and while not as booming as the Steel King or Webb I have found that on real gigs, the boomy bass just bottoms out the amp's power section even at moderate stage volume levels. So I think the Steelaire has a nice balance of bass response and clarity at higher volumes. Placing any amp or speaker on the floor will increase it's bass output. Often placing a speaker or even a subwoofer close to a corner wall will enhance the bass output. I am very happy with the bass response of the Steelaire, even on my amp stand. Listen to the low notes on the pedal steel C6 sound samples. They are crystal clear, of good intensity, and very "tight" due to this amp's excellent transient response. This thing is very light to transport but that would be useless if it did not produce great tone! The workmanship is flawless and the cover is the best I've seen. However I expect these things in a premium priced amplifier. The vibrato, which I seldom use, it simply outstanding and hypnotizing! It seems to fully modulate the intensity of the sound in a very smooth fashion with no weird artifacts. You can hear this in the sound samples I provided above. Even the archtop electric tones came out full bodied, warm and with clear articulation of individual notes.

    Minor nitpicking includes three items. It would be useful if the cabinet had a mid-support back brace at about half height that would allow it to rest against most common amp stands. See my pictures below for an illustration of this minor annoyance. Secondly I think the amp could use more input gain with most pedal steel inputs. I have my pot volume pedal load down the pickup for the sound I prefer. Thus my volume pedal is inserted between the steel guitar and amp. I just don't like the sound of the volume pedal patched into the amp's loop nor do I care for active pickups, buffers or volume pedals. I believe my setup preferences give me a more vintage tone. As such I had to use the CH1+2 amp mode to get the gain close to what I normally get out of a Fender Twin Reverb, Nashville 400, Webb 6-14-E or Fender Steel King amp. This leads to another minor annoyance. The amp has a little more white noise or hiss than my other amps at idle using the Ch1+2 mode for steel guitar. This would not at all be a problem on a gig but I would have to do tight edit around the steel tracks to eliminate this noise while recording or struggle to keep the input level high enough to obtain a good recording signal to noise ratio. Also the master volume did not go low enough to permit high levels of distortion at low speaker volumes for recording. I had to crank both input gains to "10" while selecting the lowest usable master gain setting which still left my studio volume too loud for comfort.






    A few notes from Pat Quilter (shared here with his permission)

    "Regarding the amp stand: given the somewhat limited bass output of an open-back cabinet, we recommend keeping the amp on the floor which produces a fuller sound. (For recording with close miking, this is not an issue). We offer tilt-back legs similar to the Fender type (but in lighter weight aluminum) to lean the amp back for audibility."

    "You are correct in surmising that the active supply tolerates any AC voltage from 100-250V without any change in the regulated DC supplied to the internal circuitry. If you do bench test the amp, be aware that the speaker-return is not quite at ground as it goes through low-value current sensing resistors, so the dummy load should be floating for correct response. With Master on 10, of course, it should start clipping right at 200W into 4 ohms. Unlike most solid state amps, you will notice a very LOW damping factor with a highly compliant output voltage that tracks speaker impedance to give more warmth and sparkle, much like a boutique grade tube amp. It also acts to provide similar powers to both 4 and 8 ohm loads (we provide a 4-ohm speaker). You will also notice very tube-like clipping, which is all done in the preamp. The 200-watt limit is still well within the Class-D amp’s actual headroom of more than 400 watts, so it provides lots of extra voltage swing and never actually clips itself."




    All sound samples used a Shure SM-57 placed 2" from the grill cloth and pointed straight at the edge of the speaker cone. The mic was fed to a Studio Projects pre-amp with the tube gain set on zero then to a Zoom R24. The R24 .wav file samples were ported into Reaper where they were edited into sound bytes with no compression or effects added. They were then converted to .mp3 files at a fixed 320 kbps rate to be posted here. On a few of the sound samples you will hear a short quirk in the beginning. This is not in the original wav files and was produced by the Lame (brand name) MP3 generator provided with Reaper. It was the only MP3 converter I had handy as the license on other file converter expired.


    E9th Pedal Steel Samples

    - MSA Legend 18K ohm Truetone pickups, George L'S cords, Goodrich volume pedal with Dunlop HotPotz, no effects pedals just direct to amp

    Amp settings: Bass 8, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 6.5, Treble 5, Limiter 5, Master 5, Gain 1 4, gain 2 4, Rev Level 5, Dwell 6, Tone 6, CH1 IN, Mode: CH 1+2

    Sound Sample 1 Sound Sample 2 Sound Sample 3 Sound Sample 4
    Sound Sample 5 Sound Sample 6 Sound Sample 7 Sound Sample 8
    Sound Sample 9 Sound Sample 10 Sound Sample 11 Sound Sample 12

    C6th Pedal Steel Samples

    - MSA Legend 18K ohm Truetone pickups, George L'S cords, Goodrich volume pedal with Dunlop HotPotz, no effects pedals just direct to amp

    Amp settings: Bass 8, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 6.5, Treble 5, Limiter 5, Master 5, Gain 1 4, gain 2 4, Rev Level 5, Dwell 6, Tone 6, CH1 IN, Mode: CH 1+2


    Sound Sample 1 Sound Sample 2 Sound Sample 3 Sound Sample 4
    Sound Sample 5 Sound Sample 6 Sound Sample 7 Sound Sample 8

    Reverb Samples

    Reverb with Intensity variations followed by Dwell variatiions followed by Tone variations

    Reverb Sample 1

    Overdrive/Distortion Samples with steel guitar

    Pedal Steel E9th distortion - CH1 Gain 10, Ch2 Gain 10, Limiter 0, Reverb 2.5, Master 1, Ch1 IN, Mode Ch 1+2 (all other settings as above)

    Steel Guitar Overdrive Sample 1


    Archtop Electric Sound Samples

    - Amp settings: Bass 5.5, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 7, Treble 7, Limiter 5, Master 2, Gain 1 4, Rev Level 4.5, Dwell 5, Tone 5, CH1 IN, Mode: CH1

    Sound Sample 1 Sound Sample 2 Sound Sample 3 Sound Sample 4
    Sound Sample 5 Sound Sample 6 Sound Sample 7 Sound Sample 8
    Sound Sample 9 Sound Sample 10




    Ovation Guitar Sound Samples

    - Amp settings: Bass 5.5, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 7, Treble 7, Limiter 5, Master 2, Gain 1 4, Rev Level 4.5, Dwell 5, Tone 5, CH1 IN, Mode: CH1

    Sound Sample 1 Sound Sample 2



    Electric Fiddle Sound Samples

    - Amp settings: Bass 5.5, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 7, Treble 5, Limiter 5, Master 2, Gain 1 4, Rev Level 4.5, Dwell 5, Tone 5, CH1 IN, Mode: CH1

    Sound Sample 1 Sound Sample 2 Sound Sample 3 Sound Sample 4
    Sound Sample 5



    Telecaster Sound Samples

    - Amp settings: Bass 5.5, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 7, Treble 6, Limiter 5, Master 2, Gain 1 4, Rev Level 4.5, Dwell 5, Tone 5, CH1 IN, Mode: CH1

    Sound Sample 1 Sound Sample 2 Sound Sample 3 Sound Sample 4
    Sound Sample 5



    Vibrato Sound Samples

    - Amp settings: Bass 5.5, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 7, Treble 6, Limiter 5, Master 2, Gain 1 4, Rev Level 4.5, Dwell 5, Tone 5, CH1 IN, Mode: CH1

    Sound Sample 1



    Tele With Distortion Sound Samples

    - Amp settings: Bass 5.5, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 7, Treble 6, Limiter 5, Master 2, Gain 1 4, Rev Level 4.5, Dwell 5, Tone 5, CH1 IN, Mode: CH1

    Sound Sample 1




    Pictures! Click on them to see full sized pics.











    Addendum for tilt back legs.

    I decided to try out the tilt-back legs that Quilter offers for this amp and the Steelaire Combo. The legs are made of aluminum and they are super light! I located the pre-drilled pilot holes for the leg stops and used those as a locator for the provided template and to locate the leg mount holes. I didn't try to find the leg mount pilot holes under the tolex! The recommended drill is 3/32" to 1/8" so I used a 0.105" drill I had laying around. Installation took about an hour. I did have to hacksaw off just the very tips of all 4 mounting screws as they do project slightly through the cabinet leaving exposed sharp edges inside. The legs once installed stay in place nicely when not in use and leave the amp in a stable tilt-back position when in use. See detailed pictures below.

    I just noticed that the controls knobs are not exposed and do not extend beyond the plane of the amp front edges. So there's no need for a knob guard or any worry about bumping the amp knobs while moving it.

    I made some audio recordings with the amp in the tilt back position. Surprisingly I couldn't hear any more bass as compared to having it on the amp stand and I didn't care for the mid range tone nearly as much. Bass was still clean though. The amp looks cool positioned that way! One other variable is that the amp was positioned in the middle of the room and not near a wall. No doubt tilting it back and placing it near a back wall would change the sound as well.


    Tilt Back Sound Samples

    - Amp settings: Bass 7, Low Mid 4, Hi-Mid 7, Treble 6, Limiter 5, Master 2, Gain 1 4, Gain 2 4, Rev Level 4.5, Dwell 5, Tone 5, CH1 IN, Mode: CH1+2

    Tilt Back Sound Sample 1 Tilt Back Sound Sample 2 Tilt Back Sound Sample 3 Tilt Back Sound Sample 4


    Tilt Back Pictures! Click on them to see full sized pics.





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