Um... Am I done with traditional amps now?

[LucSulla]

So I got a Tone King Imperial Preamp. After I tried running the Royalist in an effects loop I realized I got the wrong box because everything I own is "Marshall-esque." 

So I put that on the market (and one of you who has the opposite issue - all Fender or Vox and no Marshall tones - should buy it) and got the Imperial. OK, now the Bogner Helios has an amazing clean channel and several kinda dirt options along with it's killer lead channel. 

But I was now going down the rabbit hole after seeing all the possibilities here. So I picked up a Friedman IR-X to run as the "amp" with the Tone King Imperial. The Imperial allows you to program an IR onto the bypass, so the Friedman doesn't have to run out of the balanced out to still sound like a cabinet. What this means practically is that you can use the Tone King as the nerve center for everything, and I did.  I ran it into a really shitty Peavey DM 112 powered main speaker. 

"Wait a minute... this is far from awful." What else can I do?

OK, well, my Splawn is sitting here... what if I bypass the IR on the Friedman's output and that run straight into the return of the Splawn?

Oh shit... now things are getting really interesting. This sounds great. In fact, the IR-X preamp section into the Splawn power section sounds better than the BE-50 ever did. But I'm not lugging around a full sized head. What to do about the a power amp...

Use my Quiliter? by just hitting the return? Buy something like a Seymour Duncan Powerstage?

Wait a minute! I own a Fryette PS2!  I always forget that I own it. I bought to run with the Plex and decided to keep it despite moving the Plex along. Seemed like it might come in handy, but it really hadn't yet. So it just kinda got forgotten about. 

So I dig that out and run it into a 4x12 that has two Greenbacks and two Fane m65s. I run the IR-X out to the return on the PS2 with the Tone King still sitting as the control hub for all of this shit and, my god, it's great! 

I've got both channels of the Tone King, both channels of the IR-X, my pedal board works seamlessly with all of them with everything either in front or in the loop as I would with an amp, and I get the reverb and vibe from the Tone King even on the IR-X. 

The PS2 gives me presence and depth control with some additional EQ settings and the best damned "Master Volume" you could ask for. I can also run everything straight to FOH in mono or stereo via the Tone King's L/R XLR outs with IRs on that path but not going to the PS2. I can do all of this at the same time even. I could go with no cab at all (which will never happen) and do the whole quite stage thing (which I also hate) without substantially changing... well, anything. 

This is the lightest, most versatile, and maybe best sounding set-up I've ever run. I'm absolutely gobsmacked.  

Now that I "get" how this stuff can talk to each other, it's basically everything I liked about something like an Axe-FX or Helix without the other bullshit that gave me analysis paralysis. For you dinosaurs like me who have liked the idea of something more portable but still like actual fucking knobs rather than surfing through menus and sub menus, this is the tits! Even the software aspect of the Tone King and Friedman is really user friendly. The options all make sense, and you can fuck around with it while the units are plugged into whatever you want to run them through. It makes dialing it in really easy.

Suddenly, I have a lot of gear that seems completely redundant. 

[Saul Goodman]

I love my Tri-Tube Imperial Tone King. I have it plugged into the Cali Tweed mostly and it sits in front of me on my desk for easy access. It's a game changer in so many ways. I have been playing the hand wired Deluxe Reverb I got from @Dutchman for some time now (it doesn't have a FX loop so the TK wasn't used) and got up to put the guitar cable back in the TK. I was blown away once again as I picked up a Strat for the first time in a minute. I have been playing the SG/LPC almost exclusively as I do when I get great gear. So I plugged in the Strat and was blown away once again. After about 45 minutes I shut it down and marveled over the great tone. I went about my business and a few hours later I realized I had left the Tchula on from the Deluxe Reverb session. It was then that I realized I had never plugged anything in front of the TK. I also haven't plugged anything in the TK FX loop. So now I have a project in front of me to put a delay in the FX loop and more dirt in front. The TK has a perfect reverb and tremolo that can be used even when the TK is bypassed. If you haven't tried the tremolo yet, @LucSulla, it is remarkable and is designed after a harmonic tremolo. So you don't need a reverb pedal or tremolo pedal in the chain with the TK. The options are endless as @LucSullahas pointed out.

Cray Cray.