Yeah clarity and completely lack of lows. Also now I can say that Markbass is definitelly no high-end cab. I is muddy and also lack of low end (I played on it even yesterday) :( I'm very interested in the Proamp it is some magical not known thing but sounds the most universal.
@@TacticalHyena I'm completely aware that there is no the best product. Most is the matter of taste. For some songs Hartke would simply fit the best. In my music journey I'm still looking for the most universal gear. Perfect situation would be to use giant studio monitors or simly front speakers on the stage and in ear monitors and just dial IR in some good effect :)
My friend you just stated what I've been saying for some time now. It's the same with bass guitars. Isn't it great that we can pick and choose what we like. Life is good.
@@danielgore861 it is until you check the price on some of those heads and cabs. I'm playing bass for 30 years, I was with a band for 15 years and few studio albums, went through numerous amps in my life, either owning one or borrowing, and though anecdotal as it is, you can get literally everything to the point you like the sound of it, but you can't get back the money you overpaid on something. Eden sounds the best to me in this comparison, but I can easily get the same sound out of most of those heads, and the Hartke LX1000 is 60-70% cheaper than the EDEN WT-800, is it worth 60-70% more, and the answer is simple; No, and it is not even the most expensive head in this shootout. From the round up here, I would pick the Hartke in a heartbeat, and that head would serve me from home practice to playing stadiums and would cost me around 600 USD. Forgot to mention, my head for multiple years now is the Ampeg SVT-7PRO.
@@kurosumomo i understand what you are saying. I'm a long time player also. I've never looked at the amps and cabinets as I've lost money. I figured the money would be spent in something else anyway. 😆 🤣 I own 3 Roscoe LG5's and will pick up a custom made Roscoe next month. Shoot you live then you die. I think getting what I like is part of living. Anyway you be blessed my friend. Thanks for the reply 👍
I know it's a matter of personal preference, but the Hartke seems to have the best of all the styles as they seemed to have clarity and significant bass at the same time. I play a 508 at small to medium venues and it seems to suck the air out of the rooms without missing the clarity.
Fairly recently I got a chance to use an Ampeg 810 cabinet with my SVT 4 Pro head, and believe it or not it running into my own 2 Hartke XL cabs ran circles around the 810, which I couldn't quite believe... Hartke cabs have a unique high end dynamic that other cabs cannot match. Matter of taste of course...
I haven't run a hartke rig at the level they're showing here, but even their combo amps are phenomenal, I'm currently running a little fender rumble 40w and while it's a great little practice amp I really miss my old hartke
Random Question, when these heads have DI’s can these DI’s be connected directly to a recording interface? Is it a straight connection outside of of a DI , is there a need for a load box or no? I might get one of these heads but I don’t know if I’ll record with a cab, maybe just the head . Zero experience with DI Any help? Thanks
@@cd0u50c9 I’ve only played through their cabs at shops but I’ve been continually impressed by my HD150, for a huge speaker it has really good high end. By far my favorite thing about it though is that it makes basses sound like themselves. I plug my stingray in it sounds like a stingray. I plug my Thumb in it sounds like a thumb, it just stays out of its own way really well. They don’t break the bank either.
É incrível a qualidade da Hartke em todos os estilos e timbres, e Mark Bass não esperava menos, é top também. Agora o que me surpreendeu de verdade foi a Eden, de coração que timbre. Me arrisco a dizer que até colocou Aguilar no bolso rs, claro não estou mencionando qualidade de matérias primas.
The quality of this demo is INSANE. Some really great bass playing too. Really showed that the modern player is spoiled for choice. Confirms my love of Phil Jones, with the very focused low end, but I'd be happy with most of these amps.
The MarkBass rigs are really light. I replaced my backbreaking Trace Elliot 4x10 with a MarkBass CMD 102 2x10 combo, plus a 2x10 extension cabinet. And it's incredible how light and powerful they are. In fact I only really need the combo due to the power.
I have the same cabs but with the LX1000 from the video, and I LOVE it! Super clear, but the only downside is it doesn't handle below a low B very well. Has issues with it sounding like it was gonna explode with my old metal band playing in A
I'm absolutely loving the tone of the Orange. It just has this warmth and this "beady" high end that's really imparts a great vibe on the tracks. I do love Phil Jones though, also yes we need a pt.2 wth Ampeg and gk and swr etc!
I had an LH500 paired with a Tech 21 VT pedal and it really shined through my Eden XLT 4x10 and Ampeg Classic 1x15. I got the LH500 uses for $200 and ran it for about a year before I decided to put a new 12ax7 tube and man it came to life. There was a clarity and warmth that wasn't there before.
I stopped using bass amplifiers years ago i just found them to limiting, wattage was always to low for the kind of clarity i wanted. So i switched to using bass rack preamps and big stereo audio power amps, i would mono bridge the outputs to bump up the power. This would kick out around 2000 watts or 3000 watts depending on the speaker load i was driving, my rig never got above about 3 on the volume scale. I always let the drum volume be my guide and just matched how loud he was, i used 15" eminence drivers in Hartke cabs people seemed happy with my sound. I really enjoyed the video by the way.
Dude, that was my exact rig for Four decades, then I got an old beat-up Eden410XLT and I noticed my P-bass was now knocking the dust outa the rafters. Hartkes are great although you can burn the voice coils w an SVT head. And on GK, forget the backline series and Hartke transporter, all lightweight junk.
That's exactly why I love my Eden stuff since abou 15 years now. At the moment running a D410XST & D210XLT on an Eden E300T all tube head. Goddamn killer!
+1 on the Traveller. I've gigged with a Little Mark 3 and a 4ohm Traveller 102p for about 7 years now. Nothing beats being able to carry everything in one trip!
What a great video! Thanks a million for all the work... World class! Loving the Aguilar and Hartke setup. I know from experience that the C4 and C8 are able to sound less honky. I really like them with other amps than PJB.
Great video, thanks! I've played many of these amps and it confirms my memory of them. When I plugged into a DB751 I knew I'd found my personal bass amp heaven. Too expensive and heavy for me to gig with though.
This is really fantastic work! I’m unaware of anyone else with the knowledge & equipment willing to make such a high quality video/recording.. The time you invested is represented clearly through the audio & pro presentation! There aren’t many who own the top flagship model of a premier brand like Aguilar.. Far fewer have essentially every high end modern design bass amp on the market! Huge thanks and appreciation for this!!!
My first choice is the Proamp rig with the Hartke as my 2nd choice!!! The Markbass 410 rig is my 3rd choice followed by the first Phil Jones rig.. Very nice playing, too!!! The best bass rig I've heard so far is made by Wayne Jones Audio! Both the powered 210 cabs and preamp and the passive 210 cabs and power amp sound unbelievable! Phenomenal bass, punch, and clarity!!! But, they are very expensive!!! Great playing and demo!!! The last track with the StingRay is awesome!!!
Amazing shootout!! My takeaway from this video is that it all boils down to what your wanting to do. Everyone has thier sound in thier head....pick whatever is a match or the closest thing. The Hartke definitely struck me as the best all-rounder of the bunch and for rock, definitely the Orange!!
for what it's worth, with the PJ cabinets I think part of the perceived thinness is due to the fact that the mics are so close to single speakers that you can't appreciate the fullness that the cabinets produce when so close to it. In an actual live room, the cabinet likely sounds much fuller. I have a small 2X7 PJ amp and if you're 5 feet away from it, it sounds surprisingly full.
As lots of folks have pointed out there are so many other great makes not represented here, tbh that would be a hell of a task to organise. I think what it does show is how much excellent, well manufactured equipment there is out there for bass players now. It's all down to personal choice now, not limited selection, and that's a great thing.
Love all the comments of "hey why aren't all the bass manufacturer represented? " ha but this is one hell of a amazing comparison video! Thank you. The Hartke though 👌.
I am in love with the Proamp it sucks that they are impossible to find in the states. I think I would go with the Hartke or Markbass since those stood out to me the most
Phantastic demo. Thank you so much! The settings on the Orange hurt my soul. My recommendation on a p-bass: B4, M9, T4. Push gain past 5, even on clean, and compensate on master.
In all fairness both GK and Ampeg have their own characteristic sound that they are very well known for. Both are almost on the other side of the spectrum with the GK amps having a pretty big midrange scoop with deep lows and somewhat of a sizzle on the highs that is great for slap, funk, metal and even jazz as it is very articulate with a little midrange bump in the EQ, and the Ampeg lives in the low mids and actually has a much more rounded tone and flat EQ curve and is very clean even at high volume. Unless we’re talking about the B-15 which is a 1x15” powered by a 30 watt tube amp and is primarily used in the studio where volume is not an issue, or if a highly overdriven tone is desired. In other words those two amp manufacturers are very well represented on stage and online and they both have a very distinct tone in just about everything that they make. However if you just can’t settle for anything other than an all tube bass amp, well then, I dare say there’s only one choice; Ampeg SVT Classic. 🤘
@@acontko1764 possibly the Ampeg B-15n as it was and still is in almost every professional recording studio in the world and on nearly every song recorded at Stax and Motown no matter the bass player. The SVT is definitely on hundreds of thousands of recordings though and for good reason.
and Gallien Kruger! I've had a 400 watt head since the nineties ..still brilliiant the Eden is fabulous too..Markbass is awful sounding I think too much of the wrong middle
Big +1 for GR Bass. Their latest AT (AeroTech (carbon fiber) cabs and combos) are super light with excellent, clean tone. I love my new GR Bass AT Cube 500 combo.
@@anthonybowers7571 Each to there own, but I love the MB sound and light weight. That 104HF in person sounds legit and is punchy as hell. Eden did sound lush though.
Wow the playing from 15 mins needs to be commended awesome stuff I will be honest I have slept on hartke I played them way back when they were just aluminium but haven’t played the hybrid yet they sound great ! I saw victor wonton a couple of months back and his amp was massive. I have always been a GK guy but may have a look around
I own an Eden D210XST (210 version of the 410) and a WT550B. Fantastic sounding rig to my ears. Not surprised the Eden is my favorite in this shootout. Fantastic playing.
Aguilar and Hartke for me in this context for overall balance, bottom and punch. I do play Aguilar, but I have to admit I'm always surprised by Hartke.
Standouts for me are the Hartke, Orange, ProAmp and Eden with the Eden taking the cake. I’m also a studio engineer who’s not a bassist but I am obsessed with all things Tone and guitar/bass amps are SO high on that list, so if anyone cares I’m not sorry. Now I know what else I need to GAS over…
i play in a band w/ a bunch of tonechasers and a studio engineer, i can tell you as a tone ho i heard a local bassist playing an orange terror amp like this on a gig and was floored at how good it sounded.
Awsome video, thanks! Didn't expect the Orange to sound the way it did, in a good way. Reproduction in this video is really good, I use Markbass 410 a lot and it matches. I still largely prefer EBS though but the Orange impressed me too.
This was fun - thank you! I was pleasantly surrprised by the Hartke rig. Likewise the MB Classic, but I just can't imagine lugging that rig around. It would really be great to hear a Bergantino rig, and I think loosening the truss rod 1/8-turn on the Pensa J would've helped with some of the "jank." (Technical term.) Thanks again!
Love this! Well done! Thank you! 🤘🏻😎🤘🏻 PROAMP D550 wins. So impressed! Aguilar was really sweet. Classy. Eden sounds great too… but their cabinets are built like garbage. (Thin plywood, was not road worthy for me) 15” driver died too. 🤦🏻 Hartke - Very smooth, but lacking low end. Phil Jones Bass - Just ok. Phil Jones Bass - looked faulty with flashing LEDs. Not a good idea. Also sounds just ok. Orange - Was just boring. Made a sound. Nothing special. Mark bass - BOTH - gotta get rid of all that yellow. I can’t do it. So UGLY. Last place. Sounded “fine” I guess.
The Hartke sounded darn good and a minimalistic preamp section which is let's face it, nice...less is more. Bright LED's on stage suck and are blinding when you want to EQ so I would not even consider the way too bright leds and certainly not the blue ones or flashing disco leds on the Pro Amp . The Eden set is killer.
Hated the Orange. To me it was tied for worst with the Paul Jones stuff. I liked the Hartke and Eden best. Proamp was interesting for soft fingerstyle. Markbass was very good, but had very tough competition.
@@funkingitup1805 The orange isnt made to be glassy modern clean, it has a muted sound because its trying to give a 70s vibe, not ultra modern glassy-clean sound.
That PJ thing with the 24 little speakers was like some kind of failed science experiment that died trying to argue that a million little speakers can sound as good as a few big ones.
I realize it's all subjective opinion, but for me, Eden, MarkBass and Hartke are all really close and stood out to me. If I had to pick just one........Eden.
Many great sounding options here. I could easily live with any of these for daily use. I would have preferred to hear each head with one cabinet so we can get a better idea of the voicing of the head. And then at the end use one head to test each cab. When I was younger I didn't mind lugging the bigger gear since I wasn't as busy. Now I am older and busier and prefer something easier to load in and have settled on the Phil Jones BG400 combo. Great sound in a small foot print that can handle all my gigs so far. I add the c4 extension cab for louder gigs and my back couldn't be happier.
Fab demo . All offer great tones at different times . Very nice playing ! & good to hear them all on same demo . Quite happy with the tone options my Hartke LH 500 & HA 5500 give me .
Amazing video! Thank you for all the work and effort, I know it took a lot. I heard two very distinct standouts in this production. Hartke, what a pleasant surprise. The clarity produced in all samples, wow. Markbass Classic Series, the Italian answer to the Ampeg Classic? That sounded amazing to me. It has a unique clarity in the mids. Not the same clarity as Hartke, again, Ampeg-ish to me. Thank you again.
DEMO 1 Hartke 0:43 Orange 1:28 Proamp 2:12 Markbass Little Mark III 2:57 Markbass Casa 3:41 Aguilar 4:26 Eden 5:10 PJB D1000 5:55 PJB M500 6:39 DEMO 2 Hartke 7:23 Orange 7:49 Proamp 8:14 Markbass Little Mark III 8:39 Markbass Casa 9:05 Aguilar 9:30 Eden 9:55 PJB D1000 10:20 PJB M500 10:45 DEMO 3 Hartke 11:11 Orange 11:39 Proamp 12:05 Markbass Little Mark III 12:32 Markbass Casa 12:59 Aguilar 13:26 Eden 13:52 PJB D1000 14:19 PJB M500 14:45 DEMO 4 Hartke 15:12 Orange 16:20 Proamp 17:29 Markbass Little Mark III 18:37 Markbass Casa 19:43 Aguilar 20:52 Eden 22:00 PJB D1000 23:08 PJB M500 24:16 DEMO 5 Hartke 25:25 Orange 26:11 Proamp 26:57 Markbass Little Mark III 27:43 Markbass Casa 28:28 Aguilar 29:14 Eden 29:59 PJB D1000 30:45 PJB M500 31:30 I really appreciated this comparison! But I have only one question: why didn't you set the pots at 12 o'clock in all heads?
The EQs are all set differently so it's not a real comparison. The Hartke had pronounced mids because the Mids were turned up and the Bass down. Doesn't really tell me anything about any of them, or am I missing something?
I think some would do better in a live gigging application and others more for studio work! But in the hands of a good bassist I believe they all would do just fine. The bottom line is the kind of music you’re playing and the band you’re in and what kind of ears you have. This was a very well done video 😎
so my takeaway is that they are all good, and most of them handle most of the situations quite well. I do have to say that the Hartke surprized me. If I had to pick one, it would be the Hartke. Kudos to DogoHouse, this was a extremely well done demo.
I actually preferred the Mark Bass CASA over the Aguilar. Maybe that's just because of the Aguilar cabinets. I've always found them too muffled. Would be fun to hear both the CASA and DB751 heads through the same cabinet!
A year after the fact, BUT.....! WHOOOOOOOH!!!! What a AWESOME comparison!!! For my discernment Except for the Orange, all the other amps handled the different styles of music extremely capably. The Orange came into its own, finally, during the heavy gain segment but even then the Eden & Aguilar were equally smoking. All said, it does come down to personal taste in the end. Great Video!!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
I really enjoy these comparisons, but in reality at gigs it's usually some kind compromise and mixing of brands: what kind of amp head you got + what kind of cab is found at the venue. To my experience 90% of times I've played gigs. And lastly, the mixing engineers usually takes also the straight signal with DI-box and adjusts the overall sound to audience (amp + DI) to match with rest of the band. Only thing that affects that is your pedalboard settings, thus I invest more on pedal preamps than power amps.
Of course, just playing the bass with no commentary or other input provided means that the only info those watching the video have is based entirely on the audio that is shaped by speakers they are using to listen to the video and compression performed by both the camera used to film the video and by RU-vid....so the amps may sound quite a bit different in person.
For overall sound (i.e. ability to handle the most range); the Hartke, Eden, and Aguilar sound the best to my ears. Both the Eden and Aquilar have an almost fluid and strangely-pleasant low end, which is a very hard thing to articulate. The Hartke doesn't do that necessarily in the same way, but it excels in being able to handle pretty much everything thrown at it, and has a punch and clarity that the others don't. Overall, the Hartke is probably the cheapest of the bunch (and has the highest powered head), so that is probably the one that I'd go with. It is also the only one here with a Fender tone stack, which if you understand how that tone stack works (3 tone knobs), you can dial in any sound that you want very quickly (instead of spending forever adjusting your EQ). I don't know how the EQs were set on each amp to make this video, but I would have set them all to their flattest setting and then recorded it. That is not what was done here, so not exactly an entirely neutral comparison of each amp and cab.
i fully agree, my top choices are Hartke, Eden for clarity and Aguilar for dynamic on bass and taking in account the range of price i think Hartke a good choice. I bought recently the LH500 (because i wanted to have a lamp as a preamp) + HD210 and i am very happy with it
I wish there was a DI comparison, DIs seem to make everything brighter I wonder if one I considered too dark would sound decent as DI and the ones that sound good here would sound too bright DI
Fantastic video! But what about that Ashdown on the left? is it just a table for plants or what! jk This is really well done. Notes: It's really interesting how the Proamp is less forward than the others. I suspect that it would be a good choice for mixes where the bass is not meant to be prominent. The giant PJB array is just the opposite. A "lead bass" rig for sure. Mark Bass's Classic on the low slapping sounds superb. Also good with the distortion. Hartke has the least character, which also makes it the best all arounder. PJB D1000 rig has rock solid low end that plays tightly with the kick drum in the last example. It's upper mid range leaves room for other instruments, so it might be a good recording rig. The Eden, Aguilar, and little Mark seem like different flavors of the same concept. All very respectable. I don't have anything nice to say about the Orange's tone, unfortunately. It's upper resonance is just so pronounced.
They all sounded good in their own way except for the phil jones stuff. What were they trying to achieve with those small speakers? Those sounded awful to me.
Very good comparison video! Congrats. But sorry, that's a 'Hi-End Shootout' without real high end amps and cabs like Glockenklang, Vanderkley, Walter Woods etc. , except maybe the Phil Jones's, Maybe they're the top amps of their respective companies. Don't get me wrong: they're all good / very good amps, totally useable, but not 'Hi-end'. I had an eye opening experience with a fellow bassplayer, who played Hartke amp & HL410 cab as in the video and had difficulties to cut through the mix on stage. He tried my Glock on a common gig and was baffled. We tried his Amp with one of my Glock cabinets and it sounded so much better than before. He now has a Glock cab and if he has the money he'll switch to the Glock amp too.
Single 15" combo is the only way to go. Preferably 500 watts. Then again at real shows, i just plugged bass into the stages D.I. box. No rig, just my active dean.🤐🍻
Nice comparison! In terms of what I like to gig with most and what pragmatically works for the styles of music I play, it would likely be the Eden rig. But in terms of what sounds the coolest on its own, those Phil Jones rigs sound super cool because they have such a remarkably neutral coloration.
This is all fine, great work done in this video, but I would like to see some recommendations. Wich is the better amp for let's say, Jaco style fingering, including fretless, Mark King like slapping or heavy metal pick playing?
I know it's a question of taste and all the amps sound great but my favourites were the Eden and the PJB D1000. The PJB sounded very transparent with the sound of the instrument itself coming through with less colour from the amp than some of the others. I don't play PJB but I've been very intrigued by their approach to smaller drivers and since my little Audi doesn't have much boot (trunk) space I'm definitely going to check them out - have my eye on a 4x5'' cab for an extension to my usual knee-smacking combo.
This video is very well done and has excellent production values. Great job there. Question is.. Why demonstrate an amplifier that is no longer available? Where are you going to find a Phil Jones M500 and D1000 except in the used gear market? Those PJB cabs with the M500 are no longer available either.
Excellent video!!! Thank you!! The only one I did not like was the Proamp. It sounded muffled to me. Eden, Hartke and Markbass were the top 3 in my opinion. The Aguilar was pretty closw to making my top 3.
Markbass's 810's are so awesome. I've used an original CL108 for years and it crushes. Classic brute force sound but responds like a much smaller speaker.
I have the same Proamp 4x10 Cab and it sounds really cool with WP100 (navigator) + WT1000 PA. I tested also the other proamp's little head, and went into mixed Proamp410+Eden rig. Stunner cab, I can recognize how it sounds.
Awesome video Hartke stuff is like 3/4 or less in price range and the hd stuff kills Ive had mark bass Eden ebs which I love ebs but hartke just makes quality stuff there's something about those speakers I tried a hd 12 with another hartke 12 extension cab and the 500 watt head and it blew my mind half the time I only take 1 12" speaker with me and I ve had so many people tell me hey that little thing is killer I never had random people come up and say hey you're bass amp sounds great until I started using hartke
Out of this group Hartke definite winner. Clear, but still with a lower bass tone, and plenty "headroom". I was surprised how "flat" sounding some of the bass amps sounded. Especially the Phil Bass with all the speakers. Maybe because they choose to go with more smaller speakers than traditionally large with a few speakers? The tone with PB didn't excite me either, seeming higher in pitch than the others.
As a pro drummer and engineer,PJ is the best live bass sounds I've ever heard. I think there is some consideration to be taken on mic placement and distance from speaker for these cabinets verses the others due to the smaller drivers. But really in the end, a pro player can get any of these Rigs to do what they need it to do.
Great playing and recording! The only thing missing is tweaking the settings for different situations, but that would take months hahaha. Eden WT 4 Life!!
