I'm giving serious consideration to switching to Hartke. If I do, I also need to decide if I want to keep the Marshall MB-450H and the Ampeg PF-500, or garage-sale them. I might keep the Ampeg as a backup, which is its current role anyway.
The Hartke rig I'll probably buy, should it come to that, is an LH500 and a 410XL cab. Later upgrades would probably include an LH1000 and a second XL series cab.
The issue I'm up against right now is that the Marshall just doesn't have the sound I'm looking for, while the Ampeg sounds perfect but it's class D and MOSFET and can't muster the power I'd expect from a 500 watt amp. It works for very small gigs, as long as I keep an eye on it and maintain a favorable gain-to-volume structure to keep it from clipping or shutting down completely.
At this point, I'm not sure I've ever even played through anything from Hartke. I know a couple of guys who swear by them, and have met one or two who hated them and had nothing nice to say, so I'm sure it's down to individual tastes. But I'm leaning toward at least doing some very good research on their product line.
Why not Ampeg? Man I love Ampeg. To my ear, that's what a bass rig is supposed to sound like. I'd use their gear exclusively, except that it's so fucking expensive that my PF-500 is probably the last piece of Ampeggery that I'll ever buy. I just can't swing the $1,000 price tag they've placed on anything that would work for me. There's the SVT-7 Pro, which is usually priced around $700, but it's still class D and is rated to 1,000 watts, which would mean I'd have to get another cab to handle it. And Ampeg doesn't even offer a 1,000 watt cab for less than a grand. There's the SVT-3 Pro, which solves the problem of the wattage (450 watts, which would be perfect), but it's usually priced over $1,000. By contrast, Hartke offers at least two heads that are under $500 (LH500 and LH1000), AND would work with the cabs I already have, AND they offer at least four different 410 cabs that I could buy for around $600 or less, if I want to go that route. PLUS none of that gear is class D or MOSFET.
So from where I'm standing right now, Hartke looks A) less expensive, B) more versatile, and C) less of a pain in the ass when it comes to MOSFET etc.
What are your thoughts?
Comments