I had two of the original Guild/Hartke 4x10s, a 4.5XL, a 210XL (both Samson stuff), and two 3500 heads. The cabinets were very good- punchy, reliable, and balanced. I especially liked the 4.5's tweeter. But heavy... And the two 3500 heads soured me on the company. The two pre-amps fought each other since one was all scooped mids and the other was nasty ugly midrange (and not in a good Jack Bruce/Jeff Berlin nasty ugly midrange way). The basic sound of the amp was so colored I had to jerk the graphic around way too much to get it close to what I wanted, leaving little EQ to actually equalize to the room. The compressor (when I ordered the first one it was still advertised as a dbx compressor, but that's not what I got) was pointless- just past the click of the knob where you turned it on, it squashed things way too much no matter where the gain controls were on the basses (both active and passive) or the amp. And the DI was noisy.
The final straw was when the van was in an accident and two of the 10's in one of my cabs were trashed. It wasn't warranty, but it took over four months to get them replaced. The "service" people kept saying there was a problem, then the service guy was gone due to a death in the family, then they didn't have stock, then something else, etc. Meantime I've got a cabinet with only two drivers and two gaping holes sitting in my living room...
That all said, I'm intrigued by the Hy-Drive cabinets, and am feeling the urge to go spend some time at the nearest dealer (45 miles away, but then there's NO dealers for anything useful around here any more).
John
