School me on SWR

[roller]

For the SWR tone, think "clean, smartly engineered and CLEAN." Many have said it's "the L.A. sound."

I enjoyed my SWR heads, cabs and combos... but at the same time, I don't wish I still owned any of it.

... well, maybe my Goliath Jr. 2x10. That thing sounded marvelous.

I don't suppose either of you have clips of your rigs in action?

 

[dbsfgyd1]

I'm running light class D amps like just about everyone else... but I see seemingly affordable, powerful pre-owned SWR amps popping up a decent amount. SM-900's and the like.
Some of my favorite bass players (like Ian Hill) have blown me away with SWR amps for decades.
What say you?
-Types of tones
-Reliability/servicing (particularly that they are out of production)
-Cabs they like
-Value
-pre-Fender vs. Fender
-Anyone currently using them
-Any other fun facts

I bought a working Man 15" combo for our church and I never could get it dialed in tone wise. I will say this, it was dependable.

 

[GreyBeard]

It was considered top of the line stuff back in the day. Famous for having that "hi fi" tone that was popular in its' time. Solid and heavy equipment that does the job as long as your back holds out.

 

[Gizmot]

Every piece of SWR gear I've owned sounded really good and I've never had a single problem or issue. If I got a good deal on one I'd be tempted. Even though it's been almost 20 years since I heard this, the best sounding live rig I've ever heard in Nashville was a guy who used an SM750 and a Henry the 8 x 8 cabinet. That rig was loud, solid, fast and dynamic - it went high it went low and covered everything in between perfectly.

 

[AlexanderB]

Never owned, but used, and ran sound for a band where the bass player had the 220W head.
I like wide band, pure tone from the ones that I have experienced. Preamps are good (especially the semi parametric EQ!), power section had been disappointing. Lack of authority and dynamics.
Then wide range preamp will expose shortcomings in the player's technique - maybe that is why some shy away from SWR?

 

[Smooth_bass88]

To me swr is the antithesis of say, Ampeg; hi-fi, trebly and mid-scooped. Great for slappers.

 

[Bard2dbone]

Way back in the dawn of time, when dinosaurs roamed the prairies and I still had hair on top, I had a band that did pretty well for a while. When we first got going, my rig was the same one everybody had back then, a GK 800rb into a Hartke 4x10. Then it was into TWO Hartke 4x10s. Then I got an amazing deal on an Acoustic B4 head and an Acoustic powered 2x10 cab called a TC210p. I bought those. And then I found a Randall 2x15 cab to go with them. Between the 2x10 having it's own 400W amp built in, and the B4's 360W pushing the 2x15, I had an awesome rig for the time.

But Holy Crap was it huge and heavy.

Time passes. I got to really REALLY object to how big and heavy my rig was. And a lot of people were starting to play these new Hi-Fi amps called SWRs. So I looked into them.

Now here is the reason I'm telling you this. And also, the reason I think you will probably laugh at it: The main reason I bought my SWR rig was to have a smaller, lighter rig. And it was.

My SWR rig was a Redhead into a Triad. It was awesome. It was clean and loud. And it was 'only' shoulder high, and 'just' about 220 pounds.

So way smaller and lighter than my last main rig. But still immense. I replaced it with a Little Mark II into a Schroeder 1212L.

 

[Jackass76]

When I first started on bass, I always liked the SWR gear but could never get the cash up to get a decent SWR rig, so I pieced together a used GK rig (in the early 2ks). I mean even Robbie from Godsmack was using a 750X and Megoliath at the time!

After the GK rig gave it up (it had a hard life of thrash metal, pickup trucks, cheap racks, leaky tarps, and flooding basements) and I moved on to another brand, I did pick up a 350X for a while as a backup amp that got used more than my main amp at the time, and I really liked it a lot...sounded great, never had an issue. I sold it off about 8 years ago and the guy who bought it reached out about 2 years ago to ask where I got the rack bag it was in because it gave it up and he wanted a new one - he said the amp was still killin' it.

SWR gear is excellent bang for the buck these days on the used market if you need a solid rig.

I will not type this without saying that I don't keep my eye out for the right deal on a SWR rig, but I will say that if I do pick one up, it would definitely not be a gigging rig and would probably be an office trophy.

As for gigging - Matt Bissonette was rocking a 5-string EBMM through a chrome-grill Goliath SR when the Mrs. and I caught Sr. Elton John at MetLife this past weekend. Could not see what amp he was running, but you can't miss the presence of those cabs on stage.

 

[pepj]

The SM series amps were classic, esp the 400 and 900, imv.

The cabs were decent using PAS chassis and the battle was between SWR and Eden over 20 years ago.
Ampeg were left in the dust as touring rigs.
Ampeg then had a resurgence and the SVT big block always stood up with the 810.
Aguilar steals Ampeg clothes with DB amps and SWR get ruined by takeovers and Eden falls away.

IMO, SM and Jazz bases was the classic sound.

SWR at inception were reknown for using quality parts and they needed to because the amps ran very very hot pre fans era.

I think you can pick up early SM amps cheap as chips and they are great amps even today, imv.

Best rig I have, and its goes out on my biggest gigs,
SM400 plus 310ul s1, and I've used/owned a few.

I put the sound above my Berg, Demeter, Aguilar contenders to date.

 

[timmus]

BB King played through an L5 and made it sound like a great amp (which it was). From an amp tech's perspective, there were a few things that always went wrong on an L5, mainly the power transistor solder joints breaking/fracturing over time...and a pain to work on.

SWR...I have one, a Basic 350, I've had it for 20 years at least. Sounds good (to me). I did have to replace power transistors in it once cause the fan died at a gig and I didn't know it. When I bought the parts, I bought extra of everything because I knew the amp was getting long in the tooth and so I have a few extras in case they die again. I haven't used it much since I bought a BBE B-MAX bass pre and a power amp combo as my main rig (more power).

 

[bigdaddybass12]

SWR was killer! I played them for years. Had to sell mine because of weight issues. Years ago fender purchased SWR. They continued to produce SWR equipment. But later ended the line. But the fender rumble is SWR technology.

 

[BuffaloBass]

We called it "workingman's gear" for a reason.

 

[Jonny Reese]

They've captured my imagination for a very long time. When I was starting out in high school in the early 90's, SWR gear was the sign of a serious player. I remember staring at their gatefold catalog with those fantastic b&w photographs of their gear in front of paint-spattered dropcloths (very 90's), with my hero John Paul Jones sporting a horrid early 90's haircut and Phil Lesh on the opposite page looking even dorkier! I eventually saved up and started my collection.

I still have an SM400s, Big Ben, and Goliath Jr. from those days. That amp is phenomenal and I've done at least half of my recording in the last 30 years with the 210; I also gig with it anytime there's FOH. I love their Triad and Goliath 410. Here's a great thing - as you get older your income [hopefully] goes up and the things you like get less popular. So I now have a minor SWR museum in my studio for short money. It's like one of my favorite bands, I could barely get the coin together to get a crappy seat in the back of an arena to see them when I was a kid, now they're playing smaller places and I have more disposable income so I get closer to the stage. Hell, one day I may even be IN that band! Haha, I digress...

To me SWR has always meant a warm but accurate amplification of my sound. Not as assertive as my 800RB, certainly without the color of my V-4B, but it's a really classy sound that always felt like "me". Because of their weight, the cabs typically get relegated to rehearsal room duty and don't see many gigs. There is something special about that sound though...

 

[VeryTallBassist]

I had an SM-500 for a while back in the day. Very reliable but could never get a good ballsy tone out of it. Too clean and glassy for my tastes, plus I was using a Spector Euro5 at the time with the pre-trim pot Tone Pump. Probably not the best combination because both had a lot of high end.

 

[agedhorse]

SWR was killer! I played them for years. Had to sell mine because of weight issues. Years ago fender purchased SWR. They continued to produce SWR equipment. But later ended the line. But the fender rumble is SWR technology.

No, the Rumble has nothing to to do with SWR technology.

 

[wysiwyg248]

I don't suppose either of you have clips of your rigs in action?

Let me check on this, I don't have recordings but I have some friends who taped some gigs. Disclaimer as I saw some of the replies about SWR: To me is the ultimate rig if you are looking for clean, transparent sound, ideal for a Sadowsky/Tobias playing jazz. If you are looking for something different, you may need to add a pedal/s to the sound chain. I don't know the type of music you play, don't want to mislead you.

 

[pepj]

The cabs started to have issues if you couldn't find PAS recone kits.
This is not a unique problem to SWR/PAS.
Its a problem for every chassis if not currently off the shelf with recone kits or replacements.

You are then left with the problem of finding a comparably spec chassis to match with Cab tunning. If you need multiples to match that can write the cab off in terms of cost.

So lesson 1. Beware of bespoke chassis production runs. ime.

 

[Bob_Ross]

I'm running light class D amps like just about everyone else... but

fwiw ~15 years ago I sold off the SWR SM-400 head I'd had since 1989 and replaced it with an Acoustic Image Focus 1 (aka, a light class D amp) and I have never regretted that decision! Compared to the AI that SWR head was >300% heavier, ran >100% hotter, and sounded <80% as loud.

It did make a wonderful DI/line driver for direct connection to a multitrack recorder in the studio, but it sure was heavy/hot/expensive overkill for that task.

 

[el murdoque]

I had the feeling that those bassists in Germany in the 90's that had well paying top40 gigs all gravitated towards Warwick basses and SWR amps.

I further have the feeling/impression that SWR amps are one of the brands where a good bass sounds good and a bad bass sounds bad. In a way, they amplify what you put in.

I've played a few and always liked them. Their 6x10 was a great cabinet. Punchy and loud - but also heavy.

 

[rojo412]

@kickysam49 I was recently in just about the same mindset you were. The deals on the old school SWR stuff kept popping up and I was intrigued, as they were the gear I was fawning over many years back when they were the hottest amps on the market and I was just a relatively broke youngster.

When I was shopping for an amp in later years, with some money in my pocket, I did manage to locate used SWRs in a reasonable price bracket (which were more than they are now, but not the crazy high price they were in the late 90s). What I ended up noticing was, they were not as loud for output as some other stuff. The tone was good and there was plenty of function, but the juice seemed to be lacking by comparison to say a GK.
So I bought GK and fell madly in love. But that's me and I know everyone is different.

Currently, I wouldn't hate to try an SWR again. The few times recently I did mess with an SWR, I did notice some struggle with getting sounds I wanted with the more advanced preamps in some of them. In other words, the simplicity of the Workingmans or Bass 350/750 was just fine, but once the 500/900 preamps were in play with a ton of parametric EQ and whatnot, I got a little lost while briefly jamming in the store.
Again, that is my experience. Some others may have found it instantly awesome. I just feel like it takes a bit of dialing to truly get the hang of it and I guess I'm more of a simple pre kind of dude.

I had a Goliath III cab a while back and the sound was stellar and it was built like a tank. The only times I had issues were when I'd let another band use it and they'd fry the horn diaphragm with a distortion pedal. There are 2 lessons there:
1) Never let another band use your stuff;
2) Turn the horn all the way down if you use dirt.
With age and some degree of hard usage, all of the speakers eventually went bad. And it was definitely not worth the cost to fix the cab at that point, as you could find a gently used one for less than 4 speakers or even 4 recone jobs.
Whether or not you want to lug around a 93 lb cabinet is also a personal preference.

Overall, I'd say they were high quality and worth a shot at the right price. But obviously, as some have mentioned, make sure it's in good enough shape and that it's able to be fixed if needed.