Interesting review of the Ampeg 410 on
Sweetwater:
Having always been a huge supporter of Ampeg, I have owned a number of their products over the years and was always very pleased with their gear.
This cabinet has given me second thoughts however. I have the 500w 4x10 SVT-HE (US made) that I bought 3 or 4 years ago and needed to add something that would cover a lower freq rang which the 410HLF does. I recently purchased the SVT-410HLF and the first thing I noticed when I got it home was the construction - the thickness of the plywood is 1/2" - not 5/8" like the US made 410HE. This got me wondering what the inside was like so I pulled the back panel off and sure enough, the speakers are Chinese as well - they are not the US made Eminence speakers that the older US made 410HE or the older 410HLF have. You can flex the front edges of this cabinet easily with one hand due to the thin plywood.
The plywood is NOT Baltic Birch Plywood as stated in the details of the product - It appears to be some sort of plywood with a mahogany venier or something similar. It looks nothing like my older cabinets that are made of birch plywood. Birch is heavy and this cabinet is very light for it's size - if it were made of birch it would be much heavier. My US made 410HE which is a smaller cabinet is about 20 - 25% heavier and it is made with birch plywood and has US Eminence speakers. The tolex covering on my 410HE is thicker and will never separate from the wood it covers. The covering on the 410HLF is slightly thinner but the real problem is the fact that all of the seems are spearating and coming unglued. It will only be a matter of time before the covering will be history and I have only had this cabinet about 4 months. I have Tuki covers for my cabinets so the cabinet is covered at all times except when playing and is stored in a climate controlled environment - it is not abused yet the tolex is coming off due to the cheaper manufacturing processes and products used by the Chinese manufacturer.
I paid much less than the current price for my 410HLF brand new so I feel that the price matches the quality but I would be very disappointed if I had paid the current going price. The full retail price is robbery and Ampeg should be ashamed to suggest that as a retail price. Ampeg was purchased by someone (I'm not sure who) and the decision to move most of the manufacturing to China was made by the new owners.
My reccommendation to anyone considering this cabinet is to hold off, save another $100 and buy the Heritage or Pro Neo version of this cabinet, they are both still made in the US and should have the build quality we are used to seeing from Ampeg. At least you will get the US made speakers and the Tolex covering will not peel off after a few months.
Aside from the build quality, the sound of the cabinet is OK but the Chinese speakers do not sound anywhere near as good as the US speakers in my 410HE US made cabinet. If I had known what I know now I might not have bought this cabinet except that the price was right.
The build quality will prevent this cabinet from lasting as long as the US made cabinets - another reason to purchase US made products. We can only hope that the new owners of Ampeg don't send more of the product line off to China for manufacturing. I would stay away from any musical products made in China if you can avoid it. That is the only way that we can send the message that we want quality for the money we spend - this cabinet is over priced for the quality and will not last as long as its US made counter parts.
the reviewer is a complete dunce, and i will break it down as to why:
"I recently purchased the SVT-410HLF and the first thing I noticed when I got it home was the construction - the thickness of the plywood is 1/2" - not 5/8" like the US made 410HE. This got me wondering what the inside was like so I pulled the back panel off and sure enough, the speakers are Chinese as well - they are not the US made Eminence speakers that the older US made 410HE or the older 410HLF have. You can flex the front edges of this cabinet easily with one hand due to the thin plywood."
1/2" plywood is fine as long as the cab is braced properly. bill fitzmaurice says the way to check for that is to rap your knuckles on the back of the cab. you should get a solid thunk with no resonance anywhere you rap your knuckles. i've done that with a chinese 410hlf and that's what you get. flexing the front edges tells you nothing, really. plus the chinese eminences are an improvement tonally imho. you still get the lows but you also get more upper mids and highs.
"Aside from the build quality, the sound of the cabinet is OK but the Chinese speakers do not sound anywhere near as good as the US speakers in my 410HE US made cabinet. If I had known what I know now I might not have bought this cabinet except that the price was right."
apples and oranges. the speakers in the 410he are nothing like the speakers in the 410hlf, except that they are 10"s.
"The build quality will prevent this cabinet from lasting as long as the US made cabinets - another reason to purchase US made products. We can only hope that the new owners of Ampeg don't send more of the product line off to China for manufacturing. I would stay away from any musical products made in China if you can avoid it. That is the only way that we can send the message that we want quality for the money we spend - this cabinet is over priced for the quality and will not last as long as its US made counter parts."
clearly, this dude has an agenda. hey, 3 cheers for america...i get it. but also clearly, this guy has not done his homework. starting in 1998, ampeg switched to osb, a type of strandboard, for building cabs. maybe his 410he was an earlier one, which, indeed, is built excellently, but from 1998-2005, ampeg cabs were all built with osb, which is much less resistant to puncturing and water damage than plywood. say what you will about 1/2" plywood, but it's still way more resistant to puncturing and water damage than osb.
so it's all about personal opinion, but my personal opinion is this guy is full of crap and just doesn't like that they're made in china. me, as long as it still sounds like ampeg (and it does), i really don't care where it was made.
however, for those who american-made is super important, they do make a usa heritage svt 410hlf using eminence usa speakers.
this of course doesn't answer the original question, but that can only be answered by playing both and seeing what you think. i like them both, though i'm not real crazy about super low end response like the 410hlf gives you. but if that's what you want, the 410hlf is pretty unique in that regard. the hartke goes low but not quite that low.
