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hartke 3500

i have around £300 to spend on an amp and was wondering if this would be a worthwhile investment does it have a good eq? would it be able to take a pretty full on distorted sound? or should i save up and go for something a bit better? also its only 350watts and the cab i have atm is 400 would that be a problem? what kinda wattage should i go for if i wanted it to be able to handle an extra 1X15 cab of similar wattage?
 
The 3500 is a good - solid amp esp. in its price range. Used they go for around 250 usd. The wattage is around 250 into 8 ohms. You'll need a 2 x 8 ohm cabs or a single 4 ohm cab to get the 350 watts. Trust me the 250 watts are plenty loud. Graphic is good quality. Most peole hate the compressor. I set mine just over the on click for a little safety. You'll get a lot of folks telling you they are crappie amps but I think they are fine. I've moved on from them now but I still have a 210 combo as a BU. That is a 3500 head in a 2 x 10 cabinet. heavy but small.

Chris P. (us of a)
 
I recently bought an older Hartke 3500. I've tried the newer ones as well. The EQ is quite good but you need to tweak it to get the best tones. It's not really a "plug and play" sort of amp, you need to play with it to find good tones.

I like the fact that has a tube preamp as well. It's probably the least expensive head you can get with a tube. The sound is versatile, and if you have effects, it'll take them well as far as I know, but the tube doesn't overdrive.

If you have a 400w cab you don't need to worry too much about over-powering it with the hartke. I'm sure it'll be rare that you ever turn it past 5 anyway.
 
I used to have one of these: quite a good head - very powerful and good sounding. I think the only reason I sold it was that it was fairly heavy (by my standards). But I remember doing some recording with it and the output was dead silent and very good.