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SWR Goliath II 4x10 bass cab
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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100% of reviewers
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$375.00
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9.5
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Description:
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Compact 4 x 10 bass cabinet with four PAS cast frame 10-inch woofers and Fostex high frequency horn with passive crossover control and attenuator. All birch plywood construction with rear port and 23 H x 23 W x 18 D dimensions.
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Author
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capt.john
Registered User
Registered: September 2005
Location: Long Island, NY
Posts: 6
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Review Date: Wed December 14, 2005
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $350.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Lots of sound and dB for a small box, adjustable Fostex horn
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Cons:
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Heavy (90+ pounds) and a little tipsy with micro casters
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I have been playing bass professionally for 42 years and this is one of the top three sounding bass cabinets that I have ever used in a club and concert venue and believe me, I have played them all. It sounds good by itself at both low and loud volume levels. It can also blow a candle out at 10-feet when paired with a second 8-ohm cabinet, like my other current favorites, an Electro-Voice loaded GK 210RBH box or a GK 212Neo cab loaded with lightweight/high-powered neodymium speakers.
This SWR is a mid-to-late 90s vintage all birch plywood box that is a pre-Fender manufacture, which I believe was actually built by PAS in California. The four 10\" drivers used in this box are PAS cast aluminum frame woofers that feature moderate-sized non-vented ceramic magnets and are rated for 135-watts RMS each (540-watts total for the cab). The crossover network is a PAS design and the Fostex Electric horn driver is also the same that is used in many PAS 2-way PA boxes. The workmanship and construction of this black-carpet covered cabinet are top shelf and superior to most production boxes on the market and similar in quality to the GK and Eden cabs that I have played and inspected close-up.
This little 4 x 10 box can really crank out the dBs and puts out a surprising amount of sound for minimal power input. I currrently power it with a GK 1001RB-II head that pumps out 480-watts into 8-ohms, which is more than enough clean power and headroom to get this baby cooking. The horn adds just the right amount of snap, crackle and pop to the upper register. When I play my passive G&L L1000 bass I usually add more highs by bringing the horn control over the midpoint. When playing with my active MusicMan Sterling bass, I usually roll-off the high end below the midpoint to keep the sound more tonally balanced.
The only negatives of using this little mighty-mite are that:
1) is is on heavy sonofabitch at 90+ pounds and those standard miniature casters are almost useless in that they don\'t roll that well under that load, frequently jamming.
2) The cabinet is also very \"tipsy\" in that the way the speakers are front loaded, it creates a weird center of gravity that is skewed towards the front of the box. The cabinet can actually fall over to the front if you use a second cabinet and heavy amp placed on top of it while the wheels are on.
Other than these two controllable negatives, this is one of the best full-sounding bass cabinets that you can buy and it offers a wide tonal range with very deep and crisp lows and a snappy high end. It uses a rear port to keep the overall cabinet size to a minimum and this 4 x 10 monster will blow away any 1 x 15 cab that has ever been perpetrated upon the bass community. It is similar in tonal depth to many 1 x 18 bass reflex cabs that I have used in the past (Sunn, Acoustic, SWR, EV, Eden) but is a lot faster to recover when playing really quick and complex bass passages, plus the horn adds that extra tonal response on the high end that the 18-inch cabs just can\'t match.
Comparing this late 90s box to some of the newer Fender/SWR cabs I\'ve played recently, I will choose this vintage Goliath II 4 x 10 every time, it is that good. Hey, if you can get one used on eBay or wherever for under $350, go for it.
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A True G&L Believer
Powered by GK: 1001RB; 212NEO & 115NEO; 400RB-115
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ad9000
Registered User
Registered: March 2004
Location: Laguna Beach, CA
Posts: 344
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Review Date: Sat May 27, 2006
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $400.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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excellent bargain on the used market, great sound
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Cons:
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tweeter shrill when turned up, heavy, needs a lot of power
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I owned one of these guys in the mid '90's and abandonded it somewhere along the line in my search for smaller, lighter, and more "hi-fi" cabs. I should add that I do currently also own a Bergantino HT 210S/EX112S and an EA CXL-112L, either of which I would tend to use before the Goliath II for quieter reheasals and gigs. However, I felt that I really didn't have an adequate solution for louder gigs, and was I was really unsure of which way to go to until I recently played through some Goliath II's again as part of rental rigs on the road. It gradually occured to me that they really are great cabs and that they do a lot of things right that few "modern" cabs do. So, after some deliberation I threw down and found a couple of them used in my neighborhood for $400 each, both from the '92-'94 era.
What I discovered in the process of comparing the G II's to lots of other cabs, playing with the same band in similar environments, is that they have excellent presence, pretty good dispersion, and a solid but not excesively boomy low end that holds up well when the cabs are pushed hard. Also, unlike some other cabs I've used they don't have a feeling of "compressing." A critical factor with the Goliath II's is power, as they are not overly efficient - I would recommend at least 400W/8 ohms, maybe even as much as 750. I'm powering mine with a QSC PLX 2402 (preamping with Alembic F2-B or Ashly SC-40), which puts out a healthy 425W/channel into 8 ohms, and sometimes it feels like that is barely enough.
One negative is the tweeter, which has always been a sore spot for me. For some reason the sound of it brings back unpleasant memories of all the things I didn't like about the '90's ; ) Seriously, it is ok when the level is kept around "2", but beyond that it gets unpleasantly shrill and metallic.
I have had an opportunity to compare the Goliath II's and the Goliath III's, and though the overall sound is similar, the rear-ported II's are a little more "scooped" and fuller in the bottom end, whereas the III's have a more pronounced midrange empahasis.
I guess you could say I've come embarrasingly full circle in a way, having been through many boxes in the years since dumping my first Goliath II, but I'm happy to have found a solution for higher volume gigs, especially one that doesn't strain my wallet excessively.
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