Hartke LH5000 vs Peavey Tour 450

[Bassmurf]

Afternoon all, I'm looking to get a new rig in the new year and have been looking at both the Hartke LH5000 and the Peavey Tour 450.

From what I can gather, the LH5000 is powered by a valve and the Tour 450 is soldid state but apart from that, they both seem fairly close in price and power rating so just wondered what peoples' opinions on these two would be!

cheers

Dan

[chrisd24]

I was using a tour 450 up until a little while ago,a pretty good amp although about 5 or 6 knobs to many,and the octaver is pretty useless as it doesn't track well at all.

[icastle]

I'm using the Tour 750 - same basic amp with a slightly larger back end on it.
I totally agree with Chris that it has far too many knobs - I just set them to have the least possible damage to my sound and left them :)
The octaver, as Chris has already intimated, is truly horrid - I switched it on just the once then quickly turned it off again and never revisited it.
Two features I really find useful are the tuner output on the back of the amp and the Mute button on the front makes changing instruments a real doddle if you do that sort of thing.

I haven't tried an LH5000 but I do have an HA3000 and a VX410 that I use in practices - still going strong after about 6 years and o

[icastle]

I'm using the Tour 750 - same basic amp with a slightly larger back end on it.
I totally agree with Chris that it has far too many knobs - I just set them to have the least possible damage to my sound and left them
The octaver, as Chris has already intimated, is truly horrid - I switched it on just the once then quickly turned it off again and never revisited it.
Two features I really find useful are the tuner output on the back of the amp and the Mute button on the front makes changing instruments a real doddle if you do that sort of thing.

I haven't tried an LH5000 but I do have an HA3000 and a VX410 that I use in practices - still going strong after about 6 years and only one visit to the Samson service department in that time for a minor repair.

My reason for choosing the Peavey was pretty simple, it did what I wanted, was cheap enough not to becomae excessively anal about it and their UK Service Centre is not many miles away from where I live and they can often do a "while u wait" repair job.

[thisnameistaken]

The LH500 has a valve preamp but solid state power stage. It doesn't sound very "valvey" to me, but it does sound good.

I've always rated Peavey gear for heavy-duty gigging but I haven't used that particular head. The Hartke I've been gigging for about 18 months and it has been totally reliable the whole time. I really like it.

[icastle]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1031899' date='Nov 21 2010, 09:02 PM']The LH500 has a valve preamp but solid state power stage. It doesn't sound very "valvey" to me, but it does sound good.

I've always rated Peavey gear for heavy-duty gigging but I haven't used that particular head. The Hartke I've been gigging for about 18 months and it has been totally reliable the whole time. I really like it.[/quote]

I was [b]supposed[/b] to have gotten rid of my Hartke head when I replaced it with the Peavey...
I've gotten away with it so far but she's bound to notice eventually...

[Bassmurf]

Hmm...see that's one of the things I've been thinking about, does the peavey have too many things on it and can you get a good full sound out of the hartke when it's only got three knobs!?

[icastle]

[quote name='Bassmurf' post='1032050' date='Nov 21 2010, 11:02 PM']Hmm...see that's one of the things I've been thinking about, does the peavey have too many things on it and can you get a good full sound out of the hartke when it's only got three knobs!?[/quote]

Yes

I'd happily lose half the buttons on the Peavey for no reason other than they just don't get used (by me at least).

The Hartke is, obviously, a little cruder to set the tone on but is it really so very essential to have the ability to "tweak" a single frequency by a fraction? I'd say probably not.

As always, the best advice would be to go and try them both out and see which one suits your needs the best

[AttitudeCastle]

would say the Hartke,

If its all about tone, though thats up to your ears,

Peavey gear is nuke proof, and the Hartke has a valve you might not want to bother

I've never found the Tour 450 amazing tonally, to my ears. Though it was good at shaping the tones my bass was putting out though it took a reasonable amount of twiddling knobs

Likewise it took me probably equally as long to get the tone in my head from the Hartke but it was definately more "full on" if you know what i mean? more of the sound i wanted. The Hartke naturally has scooped mids sound,

And i like the re-assurance of 18,000 knobs slides and switches, only 12 of which do anything and one of them is on

Thats my 2 pennies

[Moos3h]

I've owned both, and didn't find 'my sound' in either - both of them suffered from a lack of punch, plenty of volume and lots of scope for different tones, but the difference when I moved to an Orange Bass Terror was HUGE.

This is only my opinion however!

They both weigh an absolute ton too, so be warned - also, neither are really transportable without a case as you WILL damage the knobs.

My money would go on the LH500 if I had to chose between the two.

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Bassmurf' post='1032050' date='Nov 21 2010, 11:02 PM']can you get a good full sound out of the hartke when it's only got three knobs!?[/quote]

Yes. Start by not touching any of the knobs, it already sounds good and full.

To be honest I am suspicious of amps that have lots of knobs and switches and sliders. It makes me think it's probably a fundamentally bad-sounding amp. I think the Hartke LH heads have little in the way of EQ onboard because they were confident it sounded good.

[icastle]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1033187' date='Nov 22 2010, 09:10 PM']To be honest I am suspicious of amps that have lots of knobs and switches and sliders. It makes me think it's probably a fundamentally bad-sounding amp. I think the Hartke LH heads have little in the way of EQ onboard because they were confident it sounded good.[/quote]

I think a lot of it is trying to put as many features\functions on an amp in order to satisfy the maximum number of customer wishes and therefore widening their potential consumer group.
Unfortunately, this approach sometimes alienates a clump of other potential users in the process of doing so.

I'm happy to admit that I've got a Peavey head with 12 buttons too many on it and would have gone for a "cutdown" version without those buttons if they had one in their range that matched my requirements.

[Bassmurf]

[quote name='icastle' post='1032067' date='Nov 21 2010, 11:13 PM']As always, the best advice would be to go and try them both out and see which one suits your needs the best [/quote]
I'm purchasing a Spector soon from a well known south coast shop and from what I can see they keep both in stock so will have to try 'em both out!

[quote name='AttitudeCastle' post='1033044' date='Nov 22 2010, 06:51 PM']The Hartke naturally has scooped mids sound,[/quote]
Funnily enough I've been trailing YouTube for any clips and found this...[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MywqeLVu57E"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MywqeLVu57E[/url]

[Bassmurf]

[quote name='Moos3h' post='1033052' date='Nov 22 2010, 06:57 PM']I've owned both, and didn't find 'my sound' in either - both of them suffered from a lack of punch, plenty of volume and lots of scope for different tones, but the difference when I moved to an Orange Bass Terror was HUGE.[/quote]

Never really thought about Orange stuff - am I right in thinking Geddy Lee using them at the mo'?


[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1033187' date='Nov 22 2010, 09:10 PM']Yes. Start by not touching any of the knobs, it already sounds good and full.

To be honest I am suspicious of amps that have lots of knobs and switches and sliders. It makes me think it's probably a fundamentally bad-sounding amp. I think the Hartke LH heads have little in the way of EQ onboard because they were confident it sounded good.[/quote]

After using an Ashdown MAG for the last few years - I've never been happy with the sound from it AND that's with the EQ activated and the 2 presets pushed in!, so this has definitely given me food for thought.


[quote name='icastle' post='1033265' date='Nov 22 2010, 10:08 PM']I'm happy to admit that I've got a Peavey head with 12 buttons too many on it and would have gone for a "cutdown" version without those buttons if they had one in their range that matched my requirements. [/quote]

Fair play to you sir!

Edited November 22, 2010 by Bassmurf

[AttitudeCastle]

[quote name='Bassmurf' post='1033266' date='Nov 22 2010, 10:09 PM']I'm purchasing a Spector soon from a well known south coast shop and from what I can see they keep both in stock so will have to try 'em both out!


Funnily enough I've been trailing YouTube for any clips and found this...[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MywqeLVu57E"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MywqeLVu57E[/url][/quote]

Ah Dave Ellefson what a player xD

listening to rust in peace right now actually

I rather like his tone in that clip, though its hard to tell how much of the is fromn the cab =/

I would have an LH500 by now if it weren't too heavy for me (even though its tiny! by my standards!) and i have negative money haha!

[Bassmurf]

Yeah, I know what you mean about heavy pieces of kit, the rig I had back in the '90's was a Trace head with 2 Peavy cabs (210TX & 115BX) and they did give me some backache!

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='icastle' post='1033265' date='Nov 22 2010, 10:08 PM']I think a lot of it is trying to put as many features\functions on an amp in order to satisfy the maximum number of customer wishes and therefore widening their potential consumer group.[/quote]

Yeah I understand that but how many bass players have you met who know what to do with 12 bands of graphic EQ, five pre-shape switches, etc. You can easily dial in hundreds of terrible sounds!

Maybe I'm mellowing a bit in middle age, but it has been very refreshing for me to not have all that crap to deal with. And I'll be honest I never knew what I was doing with all that stuff in the first place.

[icastle]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1033290' date='Nov 22 2010, 10:30 PM']Yeah I understand that but how many bass players have you met who know what to do with 12 bands of graphic EQ, five pre-shape switches, etc.[/quote]

Well... including both you and me... I'd say somewhere in the region of about none?

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1033290' date='Nov 22 2010, 10:30 PM']You can easily dial in hundreds of terrible sounds! [/quote]

Absolutely! It's never been easier to sound sh*t

[Al Heeley]

I think someone has to stand up in defence of the tour450. It's been my gigging head for the past year and I like having the (9) eq sliders as well as the bass and treble knobs and mid scoop. I tend to leave the graphic with a same approximate setting, a bit of mid scoop and a touch of boost at 63 and 100 hz. Then if a pub or hall is a bit boomy i just turn down the bass knob a bit or if it sounds a bit muffled i put in a bit of treble.
Its not the loudest 450, I've never used the sub-octave but its been a good head for the money and I love loads of knobs available to play around with even though most of them don't get moved.

[icastle]

[quote name='Al Heeley' post='1033377' date='Nov 22 2010, 11:24 PM']I think someone has to stand up in defence of the tour450. It's been my gigging head for the past year and I like having the (9) eq sliders as well as the bass and treble knobs and mid scoop. I tend to leave the graphic with a same approximate setting, a bit of mid scoop and a touch of boost at 63 and 100 hz. Then if a pub or hall is a bit boomy i just turn down the bass knob a bit or if it sounds a bit muffled i put in a bit of treble.
Its not the loudest 450, I've never used the sub-octave but its been a good head for the money and I love loads of knobs available to play around with even though most of them don't get moved.[/quote]

I'm using the Tour 750.
As a product it's just fine, it's robust, does what it says on the tin and does exactly what I want it to, when I want it to.
There's just a little bit [b]too[/b] much product there is all.

I mean - what [b]were[/b] they thinking with that sub-octave thing?!?

[indiegrungesound]

Love my LH500. Try 'em both if you can. Just one thing. What cabs were you planning to use the amps with?

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Al Heeley' post='1033377' date='Nov 22 2010, 11:24 PM']I think someone has to stand up in defence of the tour450.[/quote]

I wasn't knocking that amp specifically. I have used a lot of Peavey gear over the years and generally found it to be super-reliable and very good value.

[3below]

I use a Tour 700 with Barefaced Big One. Really rate the sound - most of the time I use it set flat. Tuner out is useful. Sub Octaver - what were they thinking of. Graphic can be switched out so it becomes a 5 knob amp, pre & post gain, bass, treble and contour. Contour is useful. I like having the graphic for double bass use and / or dealing with difficult rooms. Weight is ok even including Gator rack case. Not the loudest thing ever with the Barefaced cab, as it's only 500W at 8 Ohms. As ever try them and see.

[Bassmurf]

[quote name='icastle' post='1033398' date='Nov 22 2010, 11:37 PM']I mean - what [b]were[/b] they thinking with that sub-octave thing?!? [/quote]
Probably the same as Ashdown...


[quote name='indiegrungesound' post='1034100' date='Nov 23 2010, 05:00 PM']Love my LH500. Try 'em both if you can. Just one thing. What cabs were you planning to use the amps with?[/quote]
Erm...I guess the HyDrive ones are the best ones to use if I did opt for the Hartke but am open to any suggestions!

[indiegrungesound]

[quote name='Bassmurf' post='1034284' date='Nov 23 2010, 07:41 PM']Probably the same as Ashdown...



Erm...I guess the HyDrive ones are the best ones to use if I did opt for the Hartke but am open to any suggestions![/quote]

Well that'd be an excellent choice. Tbh though, I was only asking in case you were planning to use your prospective amp with your current cabs. I think You'd be risking blowing the speakers if you used the LH500 with the Ashdown MAG cabs as-dependent on how long you've had them-they only have a 250watt headroom @ 8 ohms; and I'm not sure you can wire the cabs in parallel to make a 4 ohm cab.

If it helps, I link my 12"s, so I've got a 600watt 4 ohm cab, so I've got plenty of head room.(With just one of my cabs, the Hartke might blow it as it exceeds the cab headroom by 50watts.)

No idea how size, weight, cost or no. of speakers might effect your decision on what to purchase, though any 4x10" over 400 watts @ 8 ohms should cover all eventualities.

That's the end the essay then! ;-)