Hartke Kilo 1000w Bass Head

[Dood]

[b]Hartke Kilo 1000W Bridge / Stereo / Dual Mono Bass head with all valve preamp.[/b]

The long awaited Hartke flagship arrived on our shores late last year. My own Kilo in this review was actually one of the very first to arrive in the UK. (It's funny actually, Larry joshed with me saying that he couldn't believe I had mine weeks before his arrived in his own shop in New York!)

I have had a bit of time to get to know it and use it in anger. I've thus waited until now to do a write up for you Basschat!

Let's dive in straight away to see what all the fuss is about...

[u][b]Features[/b][/u] (11/10)

The kitchen sink is in here too! The front and rear panels are logically laid out with clear markings and I love the fact that the function buttons are tidy and light up clearly to alert you of their status on a dark stage. That's something to point out straight away. This Bass head is a serious touring piece of kit. It'll never be a lightweight 'stick it in the gig bag' type amp, everything about it means business. The front panel plate probably came off a NASA shuttle! - it's thick and strong enough to support the whole amp in a rack case.

From left to right the front panel is as follows: (See pictures for close up.)

Two huge handles flank either side of the controls providing a comfortable lift when in transit but also ample protection should your drummer decided to place the amp face down on the floor. Thank you drummer!

Input socket and a front mounted tuner output (there's another on the back too! Nice!) sit underneath the first switch - a pad to attenuate the level of 'hot' output basses. This will stop overloading of the first gain stage - but of course, if you want extra dirt leave this disengaged. You won't damage the amp, it depends on how ugly you like your sound to get ;o) Mmmm ugly!!

The Kilo features a Compressor. It isn't switchable but at a zero setting it is off. It's a pretty good full band compressor actually. I'm not sure if what Billy Sheehan said about it being modelled on a particularly famous compressor is true, but I certainly found that setting it so it only just kicks in rewards you with a tasteful and natural control to your peaks. It;s certainly more of a limiter than a 'compressor sustainer' type effect.

Next up the valve Overdrive control, the first of the foot switchable features - and can also be activated from the front panel button. This is more of an overdrive than a full out distortion. Think early Big Muff break up vs MXR M80 or Ampeg BSP type distortion. It's a lot more angry sounding but with less gain than the latter mentioned pedals. The control starts from clean and progresses to a dirty distortion not unlike maxing out the Orange Terror, but more refined.

Along to the right, a mute switch. YES! something so simple but so helpful especially for those having to change basses or even the simple task of silently tuning mid set. The tuner outputs stay live when the rest of the amp is hushed. Nice!

I'm going to mess with the review a little now as I want to talk about the all valve preamplifier: Gain, Bright, Deep, Bass, Mid and Treble controls as one. This is pretty much the same incredible preamp that you'll find in the LH series of heads. I also want to make special note about the Master Volume too.*

So firstly, the EQ here is a passive tone stack - and a design that is so simple and musical it has found it's way in to some of the 'best' bass gear on the planet. Alembic, Fender, Trace Elliot and Ampeg to name just a few have all used the design to produce those classic tones. I was asked recently how three controls could possibly be that flexible vs a graphic. The secret is in the fact that each band interacts with each other. For example, if you took a graphic equaliser and set all controls to +2, then pushed all up to +6 the amplifier would sound the pretty much the same just louder. If you did the same with this passive EQ on this head the preamp radically changes it's sound as the whole frequency curve in the tone stack changes shape. Any additional volume gained can then be pulled back with the gain or master volume control. 'Flat Response' on these tone stacks is in the region of 2 Bass, 10 Mids and 2 Treble. I'm not going to spend too much more time discussing why, but I will say that setting everything at 12 o'clock exhibits a gentle scooped 'smiley face' type frequency curve that works great for Bass guitar. Boost the mids and pull back the bass if there's too much in the lows. This amp is more than capable in that department!

*So - many asked why the LH didn't have a gain control. Well, in actual fact it did.. I mean, it does. The way the preamp design is arranged can be likened to taking a normal gain + master volume type amp head, fixing the master full on 'maxed' all the time and then controlling the whole volume with the gain control. This is much like old valve amps that did not feature a master volume control from yesteryear. The point being its that they were never designed to distort originally - but when it was realised that cranking the only volume control made the amp snarl and drive, guitarists wanted to be able to do this at a more realistic stage volume. Anyone heard a JCM800 and 4x12 on full whack? The master volume control was born so that full on distortion could be realised at lower volumes.
Why am I rambling on about this? - Hartke's return to the Master Volume control. The LH series wasn't designed to distort and that's how they achieved that hugely dynamic and very loud tone off the heads. The Kilo however features a drive section that you can push even further by winding the gain all the way up. The master volume will allow you to control your onstage volume with the preamp raging in to overdrive.

Deep and Bright controls are included for extra shaping. The Deep control adds bass boost at 50Hz and the Bright switch is like a 'treble bleed' that allows more treble through at lower gain levels. As the gain control is increased less treble is bled through in ratio. A nice touch if your top end isn't carrying through when the gain control is lowered. Certainly the case when using passive pickups with a very high output that might need that extra sheen.

Let's jump back to the Shape knob and button. If you have ever used the Hartke Attack pedal or one of their Kickback combo amplifiers then you'll know what this does already. Hartke call it an enhancer; as you rotate the control round certain frequencies of the sound are boosted and others cut. I love my Bass tone as it is already, so I've been using this set to around 9 and have been using the foot switch to punch in some mids for soloing. It works really nicely for this and saves on having another boost pedal.

Finally for the remaining buttons, the effects loop can be switched in and out of the signal path by foot switch or front panel button as can the wide Bass friendly graphic equaliser. When you enable the graphic, not only does the button light up, but so do all the tips of the graphic sliders! - Yes, I love lights and this made me smile.. My name is Dood and I am a geek!

The 10 band graphic spans from 30hz to 8Khz with a level control to compensate for any changes in volume when you kick the EQ in to circuit.

Three knobs left: Direct Out sets the level of the DI. I've left the control at 5 and haven't had any comments from FOH engineers yet so can't comment if it's too hot or not.

The Select control can have it's own paragraph because I think it's usefulness could be overlooked. So what does it do? Well, simply it decides at what point the signal going to the D.I out is picked off. So what Dood? Well you can take the signal from the input jack; that would be the same as the signal from just your bass. Or you can take the signal straight out after the compressor, or after the EQ sections or after the effects loop. My point? well, as a very simple example - you know it means that you can send your lovely valve compressed tone to the PA, but for those rooms that EQ really badly, keep the graphic equaliser for ironing out problems with your on stage sound. Engineer still gets your fat bass tone to play with and not what you are struggling with due to bad acoustics.

Last up on the front panel the Balance knob. If you are running the amp in full stereo or on dual mono configurations, this knob balances the levels going out to the two power amplifiers. Great if you are running a 15" speaker and a 4x10" cabinet whose sensitivities are very different - you can balance them up so they are as loud as each other. It can also be a brilliant control if you use a second cab as a monitor for your band mates. You can give them a bit less level on their side of the stage. Nice, clever, useful. The balance control does not function in bridge mode.

Round to the back then:

Left to Right, AC power in and a switch for 220-240V/100-120V - As I said, this rig is designed for the road. Take it worldwide!

Next up, one Speakon and TWO 1/4" jacks for each of the two 500W RMS power amplifiers. The three sockets per channel are all wired in parallel. You can run a minimum of 2 Ohms load from each output. YES in theory you could run eight 8 ohms cabinets from one amplifier in stereo / dual mono mode - four on each channel. There is a seperate Speakon for the Bridge mode that ties both power amplifiers together to produce one stonking 1000W RMS monster output. Be sure to flick the switch from 'stereo' to 'bridge' next to the socket. Minimum load here is 4 Ohms. Don't go any lower than the stated impedances or the amplifier will text Larry and he will come round and beat you for hurting his amps.**

To the right of the outputs, a pair of foot switch sockets. You can either use an effects unit with 'remote switching' capabilities as I do to enable and disable functions as part of an effects patch or a pair of two button latching control pedals will do just fine. eBay are full of Marshall type clones that will be work.

Where are we? Ok yeah - a full stereo effects loop (that can also be used in mono) and a pair of stereo 'preamp out' & 'power amp in' sockets that can be used for either slaving out to another power amplifier (he he he he.. DOOOM!!) or inserting another signal processor. If you really wanted to, you could just use the 'power amplifier in' sockets to completely disable all other functionality on the Kilo so you have direct access to the massive power amplifiers on board. Why you'd want to I don't know! .... Hmmm maybe for slaving from another Kilo... ;o)

Finally on the far right hand side of the rear panel the D.I XLR socket with ground lift and the rear mounted tuner connection socket.

Also note in the picture the amplifier has rear mounts for rack cases too for extra support. Probably a good idea to use them.

** I could have made that bit up.

[u][b]Sound Quality[/b][/u] (10/10)

With so many features on board it's hard to say what the Kilo isn't capable of. You don't have to have any functions switched on at all to be rewarded with that great LH series tone. You can, as I do use the additional features for solo tone shaping, or for using a different Bass altogether. You can be subtle with it and I am happy to say that set up properly the amp isn't a tone sucking monster.

I'm yet to 'tube roll' on it so I can't comment what make of 12AX7 preamplifier valves are under the bonnet. Those who know me on the forum will probably have seen that I have a set of favourites at home. Maybe one day I'll pop those in to see how the amp fares. That aside, there is nothing wrong with the valve preamp tone. Big and plummy!


[b][u]Value For Money[/u][/b] (10/10)

This is easy! Find the equivalent amplifiers on the market then take a look at the prices - even online prices. These amplifiers, as well as pretty much all of the others in the same category are made in China. Hartke have still managed to keep the retail price very competitive. You are genuinely getting a lot for your money.

[u][b]Customer Support[/b][/u] (10/10)

I shouldn't really comment as it would seem biased - however what I can say is that if you search on the forum there is at least one if not more threads congratulating Hartke and their UK distributor Korg for brilliant service. We have Hartke UK on the forum too. Now how's that for looking after the customer base? That deserves a 10/10 rating.

[b][u]Overall Rating[/u][/b] (9.5/10)

This is my 'perfect amplifier' rating. What would I have included to make this a perfect ten? You really can't complain about the feature set. A full valve preamplifier connected to two powerful MOSFET amplifiers being driven by a transformer capable of delivering massive current to the power supplies. It delivers volume and tonal girth by the lorry load. Therein however lies a mere downside. For all of that and with any similar head, it's a BIG amplifier and with big comes a side order of extra weight. The Hartke Kilo isn't for the feint hearted and is a tour spec head. If you're playing the Dog n' Duck in a three piece band that can all squeeze in to a Austin Maestro, then you could be looking elsewhere in the Hartke range for your back line requirements. For that reason, given the amount of pub gigging bands out there, the specs might put a few off before they actually try one out. That said if you want a rig that is flexible and will reward you with a big sound, then I think this one should be at the top of the 'money well spent' list.

Dood, BassChat
[url="http://www.danveall.com"]http://www.danveall.com[/url]

[Dood]

[Dood]

Front view via Hartke site.

[Dood]

Rear view (borrowed via Google)

[Dood]

Finally if you would like to see the head in action, reviewed in Guitar Interactive Magazine by Tim Slater, here's a link to the Bass section. It's free to read!

[url="http://licklibrary.ceros.com/iguitarmag/iguitarmag-issue-7-johnny-marr-guitar-interactive/issue7/page/152"]http://licklibrary.c...issue7/page/152[/url]

[AttitudeCastle]

Sound clips! Sound clips! (By you!) The Iguitar mag bit is good, but i'd like to hear the Graphic EQ used to show some of it's more extreme settings and such and to be shown the Drive more.

And for you to use your 6 string

[jackers]

great review dood! I really enjoyed reading that, and if I ever start doing proper tours with a band, I know what my first purchase is going to be

[Dood]

Awww thank you Jackers!!

- Adam, ok, I'll get on to that at some point!! ;o)

[Musicman20]

Great review. Has anyone noticed the prices are £666 everywhere!

Apart from being the number of the beast, that is seriously good price.

[Lozz196]

Great review, and looks like a seriously good amp.

[daz]

Nice Review Dood. and an interesting review in the Guitar interactive Magazine bass section too. Id forgot about that being out there. I've missed a couple of issues.

All that kit for £666 of the queens pounds. A veritable bargain


EDIT: Dood can i just ask you to clarify something. You say

[quote]'Flat Response' on these tone stacks is in the region of 2 Bass, 10 Mids and 2 Treble. I'm not going to spend too much more time discussing why, but I will say that setting everything at 12 o'clock exhibits a gentle scooped 'smiley face' type frequency curve that works great for Bass guitar[/quote]

The numbers you quote, are these [b]all [/b]'clock face posistions' or actual number settings on the knobs ?

Edited February 29, 2012 by daz

[dmccombe7]

Ordered one and when it arrived it had no real volume. With GAIN at 5, EQ at 5 and Master Vol at 5 I could speak normally over the volume level at home.
Was unable to get the GAIN clip light to flicker except with one active bass at max vol with its bass boost also at max and the amp Gain at 10. Only just flickered.
Returned to Thomann for refund.
3 days on and still nothing from Hartke customer service dept or Mr Hartke himself who I emailed direct from the TB forum.

Not impressed by Hartke at all I'm afraid and wouldn't buy anything from them now.

When you look at Thomann's B stock for sale you can see a picture develop with few Hartke amps for sale at reduced prices - is that an indication they have been returned faulty and repaired by Thomann themselves. ??? Not sure but doesn't look good.

Dave