30 years ago I bought a Hartke 350 watt 2x10 combo to take on tour. A speaker went, then the power converter, then another speaker. short story shorter, Hartke had replacement parts waiting for me at my next gigs, free. I was a nobody with 4 of my nobody friends in a shitty old van and Hartke did that for me, a nobody. best service ever!
I bought an 80's Model 2000 from my bass teacher in 2005. In 2007 I kicked the volume knob off during a house show. I called them up for a new volume pot. They put me on the phone with Larry Hartke himself, who mailed me a brand new Model 2500 for the cost of shipping. At this point I prefer Bergantino cabs, but I will always use Hartke heads for that reason alone.
3:02 old Hartkes used to use standard PC fans like you'd find in a computer. Very cheap and very loud, but also very easy to replace! Many years ago I yanked the loud fan out of my Model 2500 and plugged in some wacky light-up blue one I got at Micro Center. Dead silent, and now my amp glows blue!
Back in the 80's I had the quintessential NYC gigging combo: a GK 400RB running through a Hartke 410XL cab. First saw Jaco using that cabinet at a gig in NYC (it didn't have the Hartke name on it yet so it must have been an early proto? But the aluminum speaker cones were unmistakable)), and within months everyone in New York was using that combo. Killer punchy, tight combo. Fast forward 35 years later after using Eden exclusively and I wanted a small, powerful lightweight combo amp for smaller dates and picked up the Hartke HD500. Wow! I love it. Now I'm looking for a lightweight, rack mountable head that won't break my back or bank and I won't be sleeping on this Hartke head.
Guten Tag Gregor! Thank you for this video, I have wanted to pull the trigger on this amp and some HyDrive cabs for a bit now and I could not find any decent videos that really showcased the features and tone. So, I greatly appreciate your effort in doing so. Danke und hat ein fantastisches Wochenende!
That amp sounds awesome. \m/ I’m a big fan of hartke amps and this is a really good sounding amp. I am considering purchasing one. Also that Yamaha bass looks pretty cool.
I sold my old bb5gs because mine didn't have a mid knob and I wanted a mid knob. I'm still upset that I sold it. Now awadays I use an EQ pedal for everything anyway. So stupid of me!
I've heard someone else say that their Rickenbacker 4003 pairs greatly with the LH1000, so maybe Hartke heads really are Rick-o-philes. That's great news for me since I happen to be in the market for a 4003, an amp head, and a cabinet! Great content from you guys as always. However, I would have loved if you played that Rick through this amp especially because I might be getting both!
What about the fan noise? I have a LX 8500 at home right now and was wondering: Is it normal that the fan will speed up very loudly as soon as you play one note when the gain is up more that 50%? I play mostly at home in a quiet environment so this is really annoying.
hey nice video! i am very interested in buying this bass amp but i read in the ratings on thomann that after a certain amout of playing time the ventilation gets incredible loud, can you confirm this?
I put this comment underneath the harley benton vid, but re-asking here in case it wasn't seen - if it was I apologize for retrying. I'm currently planning on spending some (not EBS big) money on a new home set up. Coming back from the first shop where they almost only had Markbass (and that ashdown studio line 15 which I agree sounds really good!), I was looking for some conformation bias. But sadly, you guys haven't reviewed anything by markbass. Could you enlighten me with the reason for that? Do you agree, they're just... not good value?
I don't have anything against Markbass, but their marketing guys are full of shit. You wouldn't believe the things they told me when I approached them a couple of years ago. However, my recommendation for an awesome affordable combo is the Cort CM150B ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EkIjt6YiZP0.html
@@basstheworldofficial Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry to inform you that you're wrong. The Markbass 4x10 can actually fly. Not many have seen it, but it's true. Thanks for the recommendation. The vid wasn't in the amp playlist so I missed this review of yours. I'll call some shops to try it out however I really like 15'' speakers so I'm a tough cookie to please. Keep up the good work!
Hi, Grigor, at about 2 mins in the review you pass rapidly over the shape and frequency controls. But I think what you say may not be quite right. I've got an LX8500 myself and I found the manual (identical to the TX600) vague on what these controls do. It's the same with all other reviewers, even Victor Wooten. Everybody skims over the shape and frequency controls. What I believe is that nobody actually understands them. I wrote to Hartke and they said they would explain more, but they never did. I got an oscillator app and did some half-assed tests of frequency response (posted at TalkBass www.talkbass.com/threads/hartke-lx5500-and-lx8500-amps.1440268/). My conclusions were that "shape" cuts or boosts the lower and mid bass while "frequency" reciprocally cuts or boosts highs and lows at the same time. But I'm not confident in my finding. What I do know is that it's actually rather hard to sculpt your tone or to predict what you are going to get by adjusting these controls. You can fool around and find good sounds, but *understanding* why is another matter. I would love it if you and "infinite" Frank (fist-bump) would dig in to this issue and tell us all what's going on!
Dude. This for sure. I have found nothing really going into the shape controls. I got a lx8500 myself. I upgraded from lh1000. It sounds great but would like a better understanding of what I’m doing.
@@mikhailshvedoff1398 I was gonna say - On stage, with a band, in a loud club or pub, with a buncha drunk ppl - Not ONE is gonna say, "I hear the bass players fan running" Who cares???
@BassTheWorld.com No it's not. The Hartke HA3500 has a tube preamp with a 12ax7 tube as well. It also has a built-in compressor (with a single knob too). The HA3500 also has a transistor preamp, and you can blend both tube and trans signals (with its own gain knob). The HA3500 also has a full 10-band EQ instead of just 2. Not needing the extra power, I am not seeing a reason to upgrade just yet...
What's the point of such a powerful amp if you always use compression? Power afaik can only give you two things, volume and headroom, the latter of which only matters in terms of how much dynamics you have before distortion. In fact, with so much power, I'm not even sure that it being a tube amp changes anything, since I haven't heard of tubes being nonlinear at low intensity use. In the end this sounds like a waste of electricity.
Hartke is great until you plug your guitar in one day and suddenly static electricity makes a spark and your amp goes up in a puff of smoke, then when your try to get it repaired under warranty they send you to some rinky dink shop where they put in parts they scrape up from some back room which aren't original and you get your amp back and it never sounds the same. Happened to me so I stay far away from their products now. Lesson learned.
