Aguilar Tone Hammer

[Gavin S Matthews]

Hi

Apologies if this has been asked before.

Been lugging my Trace gear around the country for 30 years+.  It's been fantastic - but I'm now at the stage where I need to lighten up. I've done some homework and been and tried out various options. I am favouring the Aguilar Tone Hammer 500 with the SL112 cab.

Questions - It sounds great in the shop and the weight is a real advantage - so what's the opinion out in the field for those of you using one?

Does the single 12" cab cut it in a medium (150+ venue) ? - Does doubling up with 2x  SL112's make that much difference - if not could possibly go for the Th 350.

Pretty sold on the gear - just which model and how many cabs?

If I go for the second option - Assuming that you can daisy chain the cabs on the 350 as it has a single output - without a significant drop is tone / signal??

 

 

[chris_b]

My first opinion is that you shouldn't be "sold" on anything until you've tried it.

Second opinion, Aguilar makes great bass gear. I have owned a TH500 for about 5 years. It's an excellent amp. These days I tend to use it with my Precision. I like the way they combine to nail the "old skool" sound, but they are more flexible and versatile. You  can see videos of many of the modern online educators with a TH500 sitting in the background. I don't know the SL cabs, but a lot of good players use them, so they can't be bad. I had 2 GS112 cabs many years ago, which were OK but very heavy. These days I use Barefaced cabs. The only cab I'd go back to would be a Bergantino. They are something special. Watts are cheap so the extra headroom of the TH500 makes it a better choice for me.  Also the TH350 has a reduced feature set, ie no send/return. For 90% of the gigs I do a 112 would not be enough. I usually use 2 112's even when 1 would do because 2 cabs always improves tone, volume and overall sound.

[acidbass]

I didn't like the TH500 at all, couldn't get a sound I liked out of it.  The Drive control is an unnecessary complication and I think the EQ is active too, meaning that one knob impacts on the other.  Not my sort of head unfortunately.

[Lozz196]

I had Tonehammers and was very happy with them, used to add in a Sansamp for that little bit extra. Then on a visit to the London Bass Guitar Show I tried an Ashdown RM500 and it did the sound of the Tonehammer/Sansamp combined. 
 

Given that Mark Gooday of Ashdown was at TE I’d check out their products, you might be pleasantly surprised in both your ears and wallet.

[Drax]

Sounds like you're sold on Aguilar. It's great gear - been using TH500 for years now. Assuming you like the sound and controls, the small footprint and light weight are a winner. 

I run TH500 into TKS S112 cabs (worth checking, I switched from getting SL112's to these..). Generally one cab enough, larger gigs I might take both but generally for show as will be mainly DI anyway... 

 

 

[pineweasel]

19 hours ago, Drax said:

I run TH500 into TKS S112 cabs (worth checking, I switched from getting SL112's to these..). Generally one cab enough, larger gigs I might take both but generally for show as will be mainly DI anyway... 

I have the same setup. I usually use both for gigs because they just sound great as a pair:

 

[thebassist]

I used a Tone Hammer with two SL112s - I liked them a lot - nice and light of course but they definitely have an "Aguilar" sound. Frankly I don't think you can go wrong with them overall.

For what you need, I think it depends on how loud your band play and whether you all go through the PA, etc., etc. To play safe, I'd say a TH500 driving two SL112s will cover you.

I haven't used this myself but I saw some new GRBass equipment at NAMM that is VERY light - the GRBass 1x12 cabinet weighs 7.5kg whereas Aguilar's  SL112 weighs 11.34kg.