Hartke 4.5 cab Opinions and amp ideas

[steve-soar]

I've just bought a Hartke 4.5 cab from Sparky, (cheers mate you are a star) and I'm amazed at the tone from this cab. I was a bit shocked when I saw it in the flesh because of its size and lifting it upstairs to the music room was lets say , a challenge but once it was plugged in it sounded bonkers.
What do other people think about this cab?
Dood, I like your idea of replacing the speakers to reduce the weight and making it a high powered 4 ohm cab, say 800-1000w would be ideal but for now it sounds killer, even with only half of my Ashdown combos power (287w @ 8 ohms) going through it.
So I've ended up getting an even heavier and larger cab to replace my Mini 48 but it blows it away in every other respect.
BTW was £175 a good price? It's in great condition and Sparky delivered it from Manchester to Birkenhead (maybe his girlfriend wanted rid because of its size) for free. Look forward to your responses.
Cheers Steve.
Also what amps do you think would be good matches?

Edited December 4, 2007 by steve-soar

[alexclaber]

Replacing the speakers will make little difference to the weight or to the real world power handling. Good cab, midrange speakers make so much more sense than pairing woofers with tweeters and suffering a sonic hole in between.

Alex

[The Funk]

[quote name='steve-soar' post='98843' date='Dec 4 2007, 02:21 PM']BTW was £175 a good price?[/quote]

Yes, that's an excellent price. You could try a hybrid amp with a valve preamp section of some kind or you could get a Gallien-Krueger 700RB head.

I get what Alex is saying though.

[Dood]

[quote name='alexclaber' post='98855' date='Dec 4 2007, 02:28 PM']Replacing the speakers will make little difference to the weight or to the real world power handling. Good cab, midrange speakers make so much more sense than pairing woofers with tweeters and suffering a sonic hole in between.

Alex[/quote]


Dude, have you felt the weight of those individual speakers lol.. I reckon you'd notice the difference if all 4 were swapped out for Eminence's NEO Alu cones. Honest guv, I was looking into doing this myself.

Love these cabs so much. People give them stick, but they really are excellent. My biggest piece of advice is NOT to EQ them like you would paper cones! They sound and act differently.. especially as there is an additional tweeter in there too. I have heard all this guff about them sounding cold and brittle.. Absolute nonsense!

P.S. if I had the spare cash, I would go out, but a 4.5XL and drop some NEO cones in, just to see how they sound.. well, Until Larry Hartke gives mean endorsement deal.. then I wanna have a go on those HyDrives!!!!

[Vasquez Rich]

Eh?? Replace them... no..... the Hartke cabs are excellent, just get some help lugging them around. IMHO when you pay decent money for cabiniets you are really paying for magnets, that's what makes them work and what ultimately produces the air shoving power you get from these cabs. Can't see the point in replacing the speakers just to make the cab a bit lighter.

Mine is paired with the Hartke HA3500, works fine, pumps loads of air, never had the amp up above 5 in a gig, even on a big stage.

Richard

[steve-soar]

[quote name='Vasquez Rich' post='99107' date='Dec 4 2007, 07:48 PM']Eh?? Replace them... no..... the Hartke cabs are excellent, just get some help lugging them around. IMHO when you pay decent money for cabiniets you are really paying for magnets, that's what makes them work and what ultimately produces the air shoving power you get from these cabs. Can't see the point in replacing the speakers just to make the cab a bit lighter.

Mine is paired with the Hartke HA3500, works fine, pumps loads of air, never had the amp up above 5 in a gig, even on a big stage.

Richard[/quote]God bless you.