I believe its pre EQ post pre amp tubes. Yeah its a nice little head. I used one for about 4 years of solid gigging and it never let me down. Could get some pretty killer tones out of it.
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Hartke LH500
- Thread starter KJung
- Start date
I believe its pre EQ post pre amp tubes. Yeah its a nice little head. I used one for about 4 years of solid gigging and it never let me down. Could get some pretty killer tones out of it.
Just wanted throw my hat into the ring regarding the LH500:
Love it! I play in a classic rock cover band and a doom metal band: the LH500 is great both genres. Likewise, I play hardcore and punk tunes; again, the LH500 works so well for me. To echo what others have said, the tube preamp will not give you grit or breakup, but I do hear a warmth to the tone that I attribute to the preamp. Of course, no where near the warmth and tube sag you get with an all-tube amp (I play my brothers Bugera 1960 Infinium as a bass head from time to time, so that's my frame of reference for this comment). My basses are a Squier VM Jag (stacked tone knobs), MIM Fender P, and an Ibanez ATK200. This amp responds well to all three of three of theses basses. For effects I run a Green Rhino, Red Llama, Boss ODB3, DOD Gunslinger, and the Behringer BDi21. This amp responds wonderfully to all these effects! Good clarity and projection into the room!
The eq stack works well for me: I dime the mids while setting the bass and treble to 2. Very even tone response and I have no issues with achieving any tone I want. The Bdi21 turns this thing into a great sounding Ampeg-ish machine. I generally set the eq to a flat tone, shape my mids with an eq pedal, then dial in some grit and warmth with the above effects. In summary, I would say that my bass's natural tone comes through wonderfully; i.e. very little tone coloration. The pre-amp adds a touch of warmth (again I do not want to convey that this amp can give you the warmth of an all-tube amp) to your bass's tone. No reliability issues so far and I am not sure of the amp's birth date as I bought it used via Guitar Center. Pots get scratchy from time to time, but no major impact on the amp's performance. The input jacks tend to loosen up some as well; I just finger tighten them and I am good to go.
Some day I desire a an all-tube amp because they are fun to play though! Otherwise, this amp is it for me....It allows me to obtain the tones I need without sounding lifeless or sterile and yet my bass's tone shines through. How Cool! My backup amps are Ibanez Promethean 500H and GK 400rb. The LH500 is more transparent than the Promethean and lounder to my ears: it projects my sound into the room to fill the space better than the Promethean does. The Promethean is quite transparent, but it adds this organic woody sound to the tone that does not slam through the guitars in a heavy mix whereas the LH500 can. The GK rb400 is sterile and cold sounding to my ears when compared to the LH500. Also, the LH500 responds much better to my passive basses and effects than the GK does. I always thought the rb400 sounding crummy with effects and did not allow the character of a passive pickups to come through. The rb400 slices through, over, or under the mix...I can never get that amp to produce a tone that SITS in the mix to fill the the band's sound out.
I've been playing the LH500 for a bit over a year now - it's my go to amp! I would like to try the new Hartke Attack for tone shaping, and would love to get my hands on a Hartke Kilo if the funds permit me doing so.
Love it! I play in a classic rock cover band and a doom metal band: the LH500 is great both genres. Likewise, I play hardcore and punk tunes; again, the LH500 works so well for me. To echo what others have said, the tube preamp will not give you grit or breakup, but I do hear a warmth to the tone that I attribute to the preamp. Of course, no where near the warmth and tube sag you get with an all-tube amp (I play my brothers Bugera 1960 Infinium as a bass head from time to time, so that's my frame of reference for this comment). My basses are a Squier VM Jag (stacked tone knobs), MIM Fender P, and an Ibanez ATK200. This amp responds well to all three of three of theses basses. For effects I run a Green Rhino, Red Llama, Boss ODB3, DOD Gunslinger, and the Behringer BDi21. This amp responds wonderfully to all these effects! Good clarity and projection into the room!
The eq stack works well for me: I dime the mids while setting the bass and treble to 2. Very even tone response and I have no issues with achieving any tone I want. The Bdi21 turns this thing into a great sounding Ampeg-ish machine. I generally set the eq to a flat tone, shape my mids with an eq pedal, then dial in some grit and warmth with the above effects. In summary, I would say that my bass's natural tone comes through wonderfully; i.e. very little tone coloration. The pre-amp adds a touch of warmth (again I do not want to convey that this amp can give you the warmth of an all-tube amp) to your bass's tone. No reliability issues so far and I am not sure of the amp's birth date as I bought it used via Guitar Center. Pots get scratchy from time to time, but no major impact on the amp's performance. The input jacks tend to loosen up some as well; I just finger tighten them and I am good to go.
Some day I desire a an all-tube amp because they are fun to play though! Otherwise, this amp is it for me....It allows me to obtain the tones I need without sounding lifeless or sterile and yet my bass's tone shines through. How Cool! My backup amps are Ibanez Promethean 500H and GK 400rb. The LH500 is more transparent than the Promethean and lounder to my ears: it projects my sound into the room to fill the space better than the Promethean does. The Promethean is quite transparent, but it adds this organic woody sound to the tone that does not slam through the guitars in a heavy mix whereas the LH500 can. The GK rb400 is sterile and cold sounding to my ears when compared to the LH500. Also, the LH500 responds much better to my passive basses and effects than the GK does. I always thought the rb400 sounding crummy with effects and did not allow the character of a passive pickups to come through. The rb400 slices through, over, or under the mix...I can never get that amp to produce a tone that SITS in the mix to fill the the band's sound out.
I've been playing the LH500 for a bit over a year now - it's my go to amp! I would like to try the new Hartke Attack for tone shaping, and would love to get my hands on a Hartke Kilo if the funds permit me doing so.
The LH500 has a fan filter port on its face for easy cleaning.I must know what that little fuzzy lookin' square pad next to the power switch is? am I goofy?
Zombie thread resurrection! I used to have the LH1000/Hydrive 410 setup and it slammed! GAS got the best of me though.....
I dont care anything about Hartke...I had a LH1000 and used it for a practice / tune up amp...at loud volume the metal top of the amp would rattle / buzz really bad from vibration...especially when I played an "A" note..got rid of it right away.I just tried this head through a few cabs up at LDS (Eden 21XLT, LDS 310), and it is absolutely killer. I was using a LowEnd Jazz, and compared it to the Genz Shuttle 6.0.
The LH500 has a tube front end, and seems to be designed around the old Bassman circuit (class A with a preamp tube). It's very similar to the Alembic preamp... simple bass, mid, treble and a single volume control. The tone controls are that unusual 'Fender' type thing, where flat seems to be bass and treble turned down almost all the way, and the mids up a bit.
Anyway, not a lightweight at around 25 pounds, but two space rack format, and about $500!
Fat, tubey, warm front end. It's not designed to distort or grind a lot. Again, more like the Alembic pre through a nice SS power amp. Quality seems first rate... good feeling pots, heavy-duty metal chassis.
To my ear, it is more 'tubey' than the Shuttle, and had a much more even and forcefull, fat low end response, and warmer mids versus the 'brightness' of the Shuttle (of course, it is 20 pounds heavier also!).
For those who like a somewhat modern tube tone (like the Alembic pre) in a simple to use all in one unit, this head is completely killer.
Amazing what is coming out in that lower price range of heads at this point.
FYI... I had not heard of this head before. They also make a higher powered model from what I understand. For you 'clean but tube warm guys', this is worth a look IMO and IME
