This is a great combo amp for the price. I have tried Ampeg & SWRs before I settled with Hartke and the Hartke can handle higher volume better than the other two. Maybe its the aluminium cone???
Model Year: 2003
Price: $475.00 (new)
Where Obtained: B&G Music in Belleville, Illinois
Input, volume, Low EQ, mid EQ, high EQ controls, headphone jack & direct out. Basic indeed. Most notable though is the shape control that gives you greater flexibility in sound.
Very clean, deep sound coming from the 15 inch speaker. The shape control gives me great control over the type of sound I am looking for. I won't play it any higher than a 4 or 5 on volume, but this is true of any amp I play thru.
If you can't use this amp - your hopeless. It is as simple as a practice amp.
I have had it for a few months now and it takes a good beating. I bought it because I need a good practice amp and something to haul to small coffee house gigs. So it had to be tough & at a moderate weight. For 120watts with a 15'speaker, it only weights 47Lbs. Built like a brick house too!
This is definitley a good amp if you need a lot of power but dont have a lot of cash. A good value.
Model Year: 2001
Price: $512.00 (new)
Where Obtained: Sam Ash Music Store
The Hartke Kickback 15 has a very simple tone controls that was made it easy to create my own sound. It really didn't matter that it didn't have a effects loop since i have a Digitech BP200. Its very powerful for the price and size.
This amp pretty much adapts to any style you play. It sounds it's best when I play slap bass. What I like is that the sound is almost as good as something that is a 100 dollars more.
Very easy to create your own sound. Very simple.
I was looking at a Gallien-Krueger 12" or 15" Sidekick combo. A friend of mine was going to get me a great deal on one. I also checked out the SWR Workingman's series and the new budget line, theLA Series. One other I was looking at was Ampeg. I asked a friend of mine who played professionaly in the LA scene about 10 years ago what he used. He loved his Hartke amp and the 4x10 aluminum cone cabinet. He said he never had a problem with them. I liked the idea of the aluminum cone. IMHO- I think it can give more clarity than the same size paper cone. The tone was better than both the Ampeg B-100R and the 115SVT, and better than the SWR LA Series. I wasn't able to check it against the GK Sidekicks. The sound of the Hartke pleases me just as much as the SWR Workingman's combo. The only thing the SWR has that the Hartke does not is an effects loop. But, for a $250 price difference, I can run it the good old-fashioned way. You would have to spend many more dollars to get anything that would be any better at all.
Price: $300.00
Where Obtained: Guitar Center - slightly used
Tone Controls : Low - 100Hz, Mid - 300Hz, High - 5KHz
'Shape" Control -in/out (on/off) buton plus control range 80Hz - 1KHz. applies a filter of 20dB to assigned frequency (It's just a cool tool to have).
120W solid state amp w/ Transient Attack circuitry into 15" aluminum cone driver.
Balanced Line Out & 1/4" Headphone Out
Wedge Cabinet Design
Internal speaker has a 1/4" input to the amp so you can disconnect and use amp with a different speaker (i.e. 2x10) Watch your impedence!
My One and Only bass is a Kramer Striker422 that I have strung with Dean Markley Blue Steels. I play Praise & Worship for church each sunday, in addition to Contemporary Christian Music for special occassions. This amp rocks! The 'shape' control comes in very handy since I don't use any kind of pedal. I can dial in a very subtle blending tone where individual notes don't have to stand out so much as to provide a bathing effect for slow songs; then, in less than 2 seconds I can switch over to get a hard hitting punchy tone for songs we want people to jump around on. I can't believe what a great deal I got on a great amp like this! The person who gave it up must have just needed the money badly, because I can't see how he/she couldn't have like the tone. In fact, I would have paid full price if I had to.
EASY TO USE! Knobs are Nice & Big and the manual (pdf format) gives you a couple hints on how to creat certain types of tones - http://www.samsontech.com/products/relatedDocs/ACF1956.pdf .
See 'Sound Quality' section for use of the tones
I have had zero problems using. One minor irritation I encounter was, when I picked my amp up from the store and brought it home I plugged in and it sounded as though the speaker was blown, like flappy paper. I almost brought it back to the store! Well, I cleaned the speaker input and it works like a charm.
The Combo is carpeted, it has heavy duty rubberzed corners and big, fat rubber feet on the bottom and angled sides. The front grille looks like it means business without having those huge gaping holes I've seen on others that makes you worry about small objects flying through and causing damage. The casing covers the heatsinks on the amp. Also, the cord unplugs, so you don't have to worry about wrapping it up or short outs. If you do wear it out, the power cable is a standard type, you would have no problems replacing it.
Compared to peavy, and yorkville I would say this amp has the power, price points, that the others did not.
I've grown accustomed to hauling this lite little brute around and would replace a stolen unit. It could have a speaker extention jack, or a low-z so as to plug into the house pa. favorite aspect is the wedge tiltback and power amp aspects.It has a high tech aluminim speaker in it.
Model Year: 1999
Price: $300.00
Where Obtained: local music store
Has a standard compliment of tone controls with a parametric eq mode button for centering a particular frequency. no channel switching or effects loop.
120 watts of room shaking thunder per pound of unit.not stereo and is solid state electronics.
I use a zoom 708 pedal straight in the input jack.Amp handles most hard to middle of the road roll I throw at it never use the vol past 4.
It is a standard work horse amp handling various styles of bass guitars and music styles.
little hum with a cheep mex 5 string by fender.
I don't distort or run at high gain so this is a mote question.
Amp is a plain jane with easy to use knobs no complex programing here.
It is the easest to operate and a pleasure to use, I have a peavy nitro head and cab that can't hold a candle to the hartke 15
Built like a monitor speaker and just as tough mine had been abused but got a face lift and works fine no electrical problems just a dusty cover and bent spkr screen.
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