Berg HS410 Lucky Find?

[As5Hat]

So I was browsing at a long and mcQuade in Brampton Ontario and I’m from Ottawa. When I was looking as bass guitars, my eyes went wide when I saw a used berg just sitting there. I think I nearly pooped a little when I saw it sitting there, like a golden chalice on a pedestal. Anyways, I reluctantly looked at the price tag and my eyes popped out when I saw it was 450 CAD. I plugged in and laughed when I heard the sound. I asked the bass guy what was wrong with it to be priced like that and he said “Oh yeah we were reaaally pissed about that, I was off that day and when it came in, the only guy working the department was the saxophone specialist. He looked up a standard 410 and priced it based on the average used one.” So I laughed and bought it immediately and shipped it to Ottawa for free. I know it’s an early berg model but holy poopie does this cab sound amazing. It weighs 85 Lbs which I wasn’t too fond of but how do you not buy something like this? I could literally resell it for double today, at least. The best part is, it looks nearly new with no pilling. The person who parted with it must have traded it in for like 250$... they must have been having a bad time and needed the cash.

Anyways, has anyone ever owned a berg Hs 410? If so what are your thoughts on it, aside from it weighing a lot. I feel like I lucked out hard here.

Cheers.

 

[As5Hat]

Update: I knew it may have been too good to be true! When I turn on the head (svt4-pro), the 410hs begins to hiss a little, and i hear faint crackles especially when the treble is up.

It is most definitely not:
-Pots (No oxidation, basses also new)
-Battery (new)
-Bad patch (all new)
-Tubes 12ax7's (just changed)

the crackle goes away after playing a bit.. very odd

 

[shoot-r]

Big Berg fan here, (stumbled into a used NV610 a year or so back).

If it's all the original drivers/x-over, ect. I think you got a GREAT deal!

I'd open it up and see what was what, get any numbers off the components/serial number and drop Jim B. a e-mail.

See if it's all original and what he thinks might be causing the crackles/hissing.

 

[As5Hat]

Big Berg fan here, (stumbled into a used NV610 a year or so back).

If it's all the original drivers/x-over, ect. I think you got a GREAT deal!

I'd open it up and see what was what, get any numbers off the components/serial number and drop Jim B. a e-mail.

See if it's all original and what he thinks might be causing the crackles/hissing.

Not a bad Idea, I wonder if they would reply.

 

[JMarkD]

Indeed, Jim Bergantino is very responsive. Years ago I had an issue with a tweeter and he called me by telephone to discuss the issue. He talked for some time just explaining his approach and how to correct my problem. Great guy.

 

[frankie5string]

Did you try an SVT4 head at L&M? Was it theirs? If it was there's, and used, i would not trust it at all.

I would suspect that SVT4 all the way... try running it with a Traynor bass head... If they don't have one on the showroom floor, and you are committed to buying the cabinet on proving it's not the cabinet that's broken, the sales staff should be willing to unbox a Traynor SB500H. Those are practically foolproof heads and sound fantastic.

 

[As5Hat]

Did you try an SVT4 head at L&M? Was it theirs? If it was there's, and used, i would not trust it at all.

I would suspect that SVT4 all the way... try running it with a Traynor bass head... If they don't have one on the showroom floor, and you are committed to buying the cabinet on proving it's not the cabinet that's broken, the sales staff should be willing to unbox a Traynor SB500H. Those are practically foolproof heads and sound fantastic.

I know what you mean, the SVT has all sort of little problems here and there. its a bass head that can never just be...100% fixed, always something wrong.

 

[frankie5string]

I know what you mean, the SVT has all sort of little problems here and there. its a bass head that can never just be...100% fixed, always something wrong.

Well, I wasn't implicating the amp just by itself, but my experiences on the showroom floors at L&M tend to prove to me that the amplifiers they have out are sometimes abused a bit.

The SVT4 amp can be very reliable, but sometimes those amps end up on the floor at L&M because they couldn't be sold privately - and the seller was desperate to get rid of it.

I used to try a lot of Eden and Ampeg gear at my L&M and there was always something wrong with the gear that on the floor for demo. Often, I'd point something out to the salesperson and they'd quickly pull the amp off the floor and send it to the service desk. Then I'd come back a month later for something else - recognize the amp, plug in and something would still be wrong with it, sometimes differently.

But the Traynor stuff is basically bulletproof, and they have loads of them.

That's a great cabinet. Hopefully it's not something bad in the cabinet that's causing the problem.
It's always possible that it was abused, though.