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History lesson - Thunderfunk/SWR/Eden, etc.

#82
Petebass said:
Jim's indicated in other TB threads he's not going to go the Neo route any time soon. He's not a fan of lightweight technilogies, and that includes power amps.
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Actually, Jim totally believes in the lightweight amp technology, just not the commonly available amps that we know of around here. He LOVES the Walter Woods, and there are some other companies that have absolutely amazing switching amps. The problem with switching technology comes when you try to make it meet a price point. I think your gonna see some switching stuff become available,(but not cheap) that will make your head spin!
Corey
 
#83
IvanMike said:
...that Groove Tubes used to sell. The GT preamp was identical to the front end of an SWR studio 220, just no power section.
. :cool:
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Hey, I found this quote from Aspen Pittmans "The Tube Amp Book", possibly already familiar for you, but confirms the fact that Stewe Rabe designed the STP-B.
"...The STB-B was our first product for the bass player, and it doesn´t look like any of our other products because it was designed and manufactured by our good friends at SWR, the bass amp guys. Stewe W. Rabe(SWR) and I worked together at Acoustic for many years. We were both frustrated guitar players trapped in an amp company famous for its solid state bass amps. I left to start Groove Tubes, and Stewe left to form SWR, building amps that used a tube in a preamp driving a solid state power amp. As I was just introducing my STP-G we both decided it would make sense if Groove Tubes marketed just the tube preamp section out of his bass amp under Groove Tubes Electronics. We shook hands (no contracts!), and we started selling Bass Preamps. This product was later discontinued as SWR began to market its own tube preamp for bass." Quote from the book "The Tube Amp Book" by Aspen Pittman, pages 40-41.
 
#84
gee where did this old thread come from?

dug up from pretty deep i see.

anyhow, i accept full responsibility for any errors or omissions in my original posting.

as a side note, commercial users, just remember not to bash the competition (no matter how nicely) in the context of this thread (or any other).

Finally, i promised not to go into the bergantino/epifani thing, so i won't. Suffice it to say that it's far more complex and debated than the current topic. Some things are better left untouched as they only bring up bad blood, and will probably never be fully unraveled. ;)
 
#88
I thought it was an awesome overall read. I bought SWR Studio 220 somewhere about 12 years ago (I think?). I remember I ended up waiting about 5 or 6 six months before I got my hands on it & when I had bought it because, since as I was told, they were being hand-made and were a bit back-logged with their orders since they were quickly becoming a fairly trendy new amp. I got it sight unseen & sound unheard on the recommendation from a buddy who worked in a music store in Buffalo for $550 who had also ordered one. The owner's manual at the time (I would assume has improved a bit since then) was a hastily bound together copier-store type packet because they were such a young company at the time. I've played the thing pretty much exclusively for 11 years or so straight & both played out & recorded with it quite a bit over the years. It was always completely 100% reliable and always sounded great & almost always got compliments. I wrote SWR about the great product that had served me so well over the years & they were very kind to send me a bunch of stickers & a SWR t-shirt as a thanks which I always thought was awesome of them. It was awesome to learn the heritage or such a well-built, extremely durable & great sounding amp. Much thanks for the knowledge!
 
#91
brianrost said:
Of course if you actually take a similar cab from each maker none of them sound alike. Each has major design differences which are reflected in the sound.
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that's the beauty of Jim's designs, in my opinion, and it comes from the fact that he's not a player. i've talked with him about this. he said that he's tried to play, but it never really catches with him. so that leaves him as an engineer who understands sound, and who has a set of design objectives and no bias.

in other words, he has no dog in the fight, no holy grail tone he's trying to achieve for himself. so he has a truly blank sheet to design what the customer wants. and that is clearly different for epifani and aguilar. and then he differentiated his own cabinets from his outsourced designs.

robb.
 
#92
slinkp said:
Great story Ivan!

The story of the 360 is puzzling me lately. I'd heard for years that Harvey Gerst (now a small studio engineer) designed them, but I'd been hearing here in TB and in this thread that it was Russ Allee:
So I did some googling, ang came up with this:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Looks like it was a team effort.
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This is quite intersting as well. I have always been curious
about Acoustic, being the original owner of a 140 head and
106 Cab loaded with Eminence drivers circa 1975. Thirty
years of solid performance without 1 visit to the shop.

The third post provides more insight into their corporate
history. Excellent find!

Thanks IvanMike, that was a great job!
 
#97
Munjibunga said:
I don't know. Who is he? I'm surprised nothing comes up on Google for him.
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hmmm...I've never heard of him either. I do know that before the sale to Fender, SWR was "sharing" office/suite space with VHT Amplification. I don't know if there is a link there or not.
 
#98
Steve sold SWR to Darryl Jameson a while before Fender claimed ownership... During NAMM 2002 (Nashville) Darryl was introduced to me (by David Doyle, SWR's A&R at that time) as the 'owner' of SWR.... so, who knows.

Do more searching... :smug:
 
#100
Re: What happened?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

grace & groove said:
I was looking at an old thread you made and I was wondering what happened in between Bergantino and Epifani?

Can you link me to a thread or tell what happened?
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well, it depends on who you talk to.

essentially jim bergantino used to work for nick epifani, later jim left under non-disclosed circumstances and began producing cabinets under his own name which were remarkably similar to some epifani designs. Epifani claims that bergantino "borrowed" many of the design parameters, most notably the crossovers. Bergantino claims that he designed the crossovers in the epifani cabs himself and perhaps other cabinet parameters, and felt they were his to use on his own. My dealer friends who have spoken to both manufacturers indicate that there is a fair amount of bad blood between the two.
__________________
Wow. 1st the Aggie, now Munji buys a Bergie. The folks over at Eden Electronics are scratching their heads. I guess after 10,000 posts you start to go a little crazy.
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Here's a little sum-up Ivan gave me about the Berg/Epi situation in a recent PM.
 

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