Bernmeister

That's what's frustrating me. As 4 of my 5 basses have EMG's & I'd be worried about the slow response should I need help.

I've been using EMG's for approx 25yrs & luckily I've never had any problems, so luckily I've never needed to contact their CS. But I have noticed that its always been cheaper to buy them from the States than buy from the Uk, even with taking delivery into account.

Hi JPJ, Would be interested to hear how you got on with the adjustments that you made & the differences in sound that it made. As I'm an Swr user & will be rehearsing with a new band. The chances are that I will have to use an Ashdown amp in the rehearsal room.

Sorry to Gunsfreddy2003 for my slow reply to his question regarding the differences between the Redhead & the Super Redhead. The main differences is that the upgraded power handling & rating of the 2 x10 drivers that were used in them. Internal cooling fan, redesigned front & rear bracing panels, mute switch for the xlr output & front porting in the speaker sections. Regarding the Headlite & Amplite, they came into play once Fender had taken over Swr & I guess were their attempts at going lightweight & trying to get into a similar market of the Markbass & the Genz Benz range of compact sized class D amps & which were proving very popular at the time. The Headlite's were rated at 400w with a tube preamp, weighed in at approx 4lbs, had their well known aural enhancer kept in & had speakon jack outputs all housed in a half rack sized unit & came in a handy padded accessory back big enough to carry unit itself, the optional matching poweramp - the "Amplite", the optional 2 button footswitch & cables. The Amplite was also rated at 400w again with a class D amplifier built into it. I personally found the sound a little bit thinner than my Sm400s & was offered a fantastic deal when I purchased both together, so that's what I did. The only downside is that if using these live is to make sure that you have fully tweaked you setting, as seeing & trying to make any adjustments is truly very difficult as the buttons are very small & close together & the writing on the front panels is very small too. Hope that this gives you an insight into the Headlite & the Amplite.

I'm also what you would class as an Swr fan too ! I currently own the following bits of Swr kit - Sm 400s 3 Goliath juniors Stereo 800 Grand Prix pre-amp Headlite & Amplite Super redhead Baby Blue II 1x10 combo I used to own - Sm400 Basic 2 way 1 x 15 cab Son Of Bertha 1 x 15 cab. I love the sound of the Swr cabs, back in the day, they were classed as light weight cabs. But for me they sound awesome. Lovely tone On the subject on their amps, some of them do run hot, but they were designed that way which their aluminium chassis which was meant to disperse heat efficiently. Their amps do sound very clean, I believe originally they were mainly designed to be studio & recording amps. They do lack a bit of grit & mid range, I use a sansamp to dial all of that back in when playing live. But lots of Swr love from me

Would be good if you could keep us updated. Its always good to hear how manufacturers respond to their customers problems

I must say that i became a big Nick Kershaw fan after hearing the first album. I also seen him live with Dennis Smith playing bass. If i remember rightly Dennis Smith was playing a Wal & a Jaydee bass live. His songs are always very inventive & great to play from a bass players point of view. After listening to alot of his records, i've found him to be a very clever songwriter.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1354889857' post='1891675'] SWR built them to run HOT..as they used very good componets. My amp tech says this is a poor design... but I disagree as my SM400 hasn't missed a beat in 20 odd years. Thunderfunk copied the amp, IIRC..and they aren't bad amps either. It was likely brought as a studio pre amp... and the tone shaping is very powerful. By todays standards it may seem underpowered but I still have my SM400 and can't bare to sell it even tho I never get to take it out these days, it is worth more to me than the sum I would likely get for it. [/quote] I agree with JTUK, If its tone your looking for you've got yourself a bargain there. I used to own the SM400, which i had for 10yrs, but managed to trade it for the upgraded SM400s which has a built in fan & an extra 50watts per channel of power. I can't see myself selling mine either, as its capable of producing a great variety of sounds & i would never get back its true value. I own alot of SWR gear, so welcome to the SWR Club.