Hartke HA2500

The amp has 2 inputs; passive and active, 2 pre-amps (solid and valve), compression, 10 band graphic eq, low and high pass contour adjustment and maion volume dial. Its a 300w at 4ohms or 180 at 8ohms. It also has effects loop but no head phone or DI which is a let down.
I use this amp in practise studios and small to medium sized gigs for primarily funk, but also rock, soul, ska and a bit of blues thrown in! So it has a sound for rather alot of styles.
It definetly has the punch i need for the sized gigs im doing.

I use this head with a Music Man Stingray bass and up untill very recently a Hartke 410TP cab.
The head sounded great through the hartke cab, i had to boost the bottom end a bit but it still sounded great! lovely warm punchy lows and it pulled the mids through well but the highs werent amazing which ill explain in a sec.
I never had to crank it past 3 so no idea if it distorts at all but i never had any problems with sound quality. The built in fan is nice and quite (sp?!) too.
Right, the highs. I now have an Ampeg B410 HE cab and the highs sound much better with that, but only because it has a far better top end that the hartke cab, all ranges are fantastic and sound brilliant. When getting my Ampeg cab i tried my head through it and also the Ampeg B1-RE, the hartke head far outplayed the ampeg, it was very very dissapointing and i would expect more from ampeg with thier head. Considering the Hartke is roughly 1/3 the price of the ampeg and has way more features on it, its an excellent head. It doesnt have the growl as a more expensive head but for ??220, c'mon!

I have never gigged with a back up, i feel completely confident using this as it is.

Never had to use them

For the money, amazing! You cant beat it on value for money and Hartke have done a very good job on this.Ive been playing for 7 years and have become very picky with my sound, Ive used it for 2 years and never had a single problem with, great sound, loaded with features, reliable. Sounded sooo much better than the Ampeg B1-RE with is normally ??450/??500 and the Hartke head is a steal at ??220.
I would give it 10 but it doesnt have a XLR DI would be ideal, though its not essential.
If your on a budget, buy it. If you're thinking on getting a Ampeg B1-RE, don't, get this one instead.

This is the first bass head I have ever owned. I just got it in the mail yesterday and am already in love with it!

The head is a refurbished model that I picked up for $199 American. The equalizer with the low and high pass contour controls make tuning in a good thick sound faily easy (I do enjoy laying it down thick), and with the tube emulator and the solid state preamps, you can dial in a tone that sounds pretty sweet. I dont have much experience dealing with compression, so I have no clue what to even do with this knob, so I just dont screw with it.

I like that the head has an effects loop, however its almost worthless to me because I typically keep my sound clean (never been much for muddling up with effects). I picked this amp up mainly because I have two great big old Pyle stage monitors that Ive not been able to do anything productive with; I must say, I now have something really sweet to do with them!

The monitors Im using with this head are 15in Pyle drivers ratted at 220 watts (at 4 ohms), with 4in mid-range pyramid drivers at 200 watts and pyramid horns. I get a pretty full sound from using these with the head. When I first hooked up the head it took me a while to dial in a good sound, but once I did things were lovely!

The head sounds pretty sweet once I got everything dialed in where it needed to be. The tube emulator doesnt sound too bad, but it doesnt sound like your playin with real tubes, its a little weak compared to a good tube sound, but pretty good for an emulator. Between the emulator and the solid state, you have to dial in either one or the other really, if you try to even keep the both on half-way you can end up with some distortion. Ive got the emulator up at about 8 and the solid state at around 4-5 and I get a pretty good sound.

At low levels the amp sounds damn good and can still rattle my house. Last night I was maybe at 2 and 1/2 on the master and was rattling books off of my bookshelf (thank God I have no neighbors). One complaint I really have about sound is just the sound of the fan! That thing really blows! This is not a bad thing though, I really dont worry about ever having the amp overheat because with as loud as the fan is, there's no way in hell.

I really dont know anything about the reliability yet because Ive only had it a day now!

Even though I bought a refurbished product, I still got the full warrenty!

I have been playing for about seven years now and currently playing on a 2002 Ibanez GSR 200 (is not an active bass like the newer GSR's) and it sounds pretty good through the head.

I think for the price, this amp shines! If it were stolen, I am sure I would be upset and try and buy another one, but hopefully that wont happen, cause it took me long enough to get up the money to buy this one.

I wouldnt mind seeing a larger variety of outputs on the back of this one, but you cant really expect to get everything for such a good price. All in all though, I really like this amp and cant wait to get home and play some more!