Hartke vs SWR?

DrNewcenstein

DrNewcenstein

He Did the Monster Mash
Looking at a couple of heads - SWR Workingman 400 vs Hartke HA3500 in the same price range. Ideally I'd get both, but running out of room here :lol:

Any insight on that oh-so-subjective "better" business?
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

SWR is out of business. I have a Hartke LH500. 500Watts, and a Class A tube preamp. Amazing amp, and it was only $350. Their solid state amps are great too. SWR is also a great amp.
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

Both are great amps. I personally like the brightness that the Hartke has, but others may not. You really can't go wrong with either one.

Just stay away from the new Ampegs. My bass player has one of those, and it's broken down something like 12 times. It just stays at the shop. I checked the reviews on MF, and other people seem to be having the same issues. It's just not the same since St. Louis Music sold them off.
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

Tough to say. I like what I've heard of both. I do like the brightness of the Hartke though.
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

I have owned an SWR Basic Black combo and it sounded pretty good. I traded it off so I mean, I can live without it. I currently own a Hartke HA3500 and HA2500. I run them both in dual mode through an Ampeg 810. One clean, one dirty. I love my Hartkes. They are great amps for the money. Very transparent sounding and tweakable eq-wise. They let the sound of your bass come through without coloring it as much as some amps. Also take pedals well. However I only paid around $100 apiece for mine. $300 seems kinda steep for a used one. If you comb craigslist and even evilbay you should be able to find one for less.
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

synzzzer said:
It's just not the same since St. Louis Music sold them off.
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Agreed, but for clarity's sake, SLM was absorbed into what was Mackie in '05.
Now it's Loud Technologies. *yawn*

SLM was trying to keep some of the mojo going. MY US-made Ampeg single 12 still does the job at home, but I'd be wary of the class D miniamps.
I used one on a gig, and it tripped the safety breaker when I hit a low B. I had to reset, back off the master vol, pull back the lows and squash the compressor just to get through the night.

FMIC made like a mama bird.
They killed two of the best bass amp companies in the biz, and regurgitated the remains to their young: Sunn (long live the O)))! ) and SWR.
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

AdamR said:
Theres never been an amp I hated more then SWR. Bland.
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I don't know if I would go that far, but I do not like SWR. I had a SWR workingman practice amp for about 2 weeks back in 2004 or 2005. I bought it brand new, played on it a few times and went back to using my GK 1001RB for practicing. If I remember right I sold the SWR and lost about $80 for 2 weeks of use. Oh well, it was worth it to not have an excessively large paper weight in my house.
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

Now there's a good bass amp; GK. Also, just have to put a word in for Peavey, which I also may like just as much as either the Hartke or the GK.
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

I forgot all about Peavey :doh:

I know Ellefson used one of their 8x10 cabs for a while (Rust and such). Not sure if he still does, but I do like the bass tone from those albums.

Any comments on Carvin stuff? I've got a 2x12 guitar cab that I love for its clarity even at high volume. Seems like it cleans up more as the volume increases. Would love to stand in front of one of their 18" folded horn cabs. Just until I had to go take a dump from it :lol:


And while we're here, I know very little about crossovers, but if I understand correctly, they are used for routing certain freqs to certain speaker cabs? Like mids and highs to say a 2x10 and low-mids and lows to a 1x12/15/18? Are they pretty much a requirement for bass?
 
Re: Hartke vs SWR?

DrNewcenstein said:
I forgot all about Peavey :doh:

I know Ellefson used one of their 8x10 cabs for a while (Rust and such). Not sure if he still does, but I do like the bass tone from those albums.

Any comments on Carvin stuff? I've got a 2x12 guitar cab that I love for its clarity even at high volume. Seems like it cleans up more as the volume increases. Would love to stand in front of one of their 18" folded horn cabs. Just until I had to go take a dump from it :lol:


And while we're here, I know very little about crossovers, but if I understand correctly, they are used for routing certain freqs to certain speaker cabs? Like mids and highs to say a 2x10 and low-mids and lows to a 1x12/15/18? Are they pretty much a requirement for bass?
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David Ellefson used a GK800RB into Hartke 4x10 & 1x15s for SFSGSW, Rust, and Countdown. He switched to Ampegs for Youth and then a rack system with a Mackie power amp and Peavey 8x10s for the remaining pre-hiatus albums. Carvin cabinets tend to be decent, but sometimes the OEM speakers aren't the best. I don't know a lot about their bass speakers (know more about guitar/PA), but the trend seems to hold for most of their products.

Crossovers are a bit more complicated, and I'd wager most players would say that you don't really need one. Some amps (like the GK800RB for example) have a built-in crossover, though according to GK, most 800RB users disabled the crossover and hooked all of their cabs to the lower, larger power amp. Of course any cabinet with a horn needs a crossover, but you're not asking about that. In addition to amps with built-in crossovers, you could also use a preamp, rack crossover, and multiple power amps with dedicated cabs for each frequency, or a full-range head into a cab with internal crossover(s) and multiple frequency-specific drivers. The fEARful cabinet longcat and I use is part of this last group; a 12" sub handles the lows while a 6" driver handles midrange and treble. The cabs can be built with a horn, but we like to use fuzz pedals (which sound HORRIBLE with a horn) so we decided not to use one. I can't recommend these cabs highly enough; it only weighs about 50lbs, but it's VERY LOUD for its size and I've never heard anything with better clarity.
 
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Re: Hartke vs SWR?

Hartke's stuff just amazes me. It can be had for stupid cheap and sounds amazing, I picked up an LH1000 and a 4.5XL in absolutely mint condition for $250 for the pair off Craigslist and love them to death. I was thinking I would miss having a graphic EQ but the tone stack is really versatile and with a little patience and work can dial in pretty much any tone I want from soft, warm and round to punishingly punchy while still being both heavy and articulate. As donahue mentioned, it takes all sorts of pedals and effects well, I use a Behringer Bass V-Amp Pro to mess up the tone or get surprisingly good sounds depending on how stupid I get with it.

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Yeah, I know it's kinda overkill, but it's fun.

Plus, the folks at Hartke/Samson have been very helpful when I called them with questions. While I have no personal experience with SWR, I'd go Hartke in a New York minute and never look back.

As usual, that's my opinion and it's worth exactly what you just paid for it.
 
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