SWR Bass 350

1999

great quality

have had the amp since 1999. Never a problem until now.
Problem started with scratchy noise (almost like dirty pots) clean everything, switched cabs, chords, and guitars but to no avail. Still has scratchy noise.
took it to two technicians ans they couln'e fix it. Now I'm sending it to LA to see if they can fix it. We''l see
I'll let you know

Granted this amp does have half the stuff of the high end and high dollar amps, but what it has is completely useful and user friendly. Active and Passive inputs, effects loop with blend control, balanced D.I for recording, 350 @ 4ohms (pretty loud)/220 @ 8ohms, tube preamp and solid state power, rack mountable and not so heavy. Basic.

I must agree with some of the other reviews here in saying that you really need to turn the bass to 9 to get anything out of it and the highs should probably not be turn past 2 due to the brittle and unwarm natural of the highs (which is weird since it has a tube pre-amp..isn't that what the pre-amp is for.) None-the-less it sounds great for what I use it for (noise/drone/experimental.) It does say Basic 350 on the front. I would try using other tube in the pre-amp if you get yours at a fair price.

This amp has never giving me any problems and I have push this baby hard. It even fell of my SVT cab and was still tickin'. I took it to a shop and the service tech said there was nothing wrong with it. It's not a tank, but it will get the job done. It has for 5 years of heavy use.

Never dealt with company and get it serviced was no problem.

I have been playing for 10+ years and I would get another if it were stolen. Honestly, I would rather have a Sunn amp, but they are pretty hard to come by unless you have the cash when they are avaliable. I own another SWR, the pre-Fender Workingman's 160, and it is just as bad ass. I would rather have a Sunn, but for the price, portability, basic features (no muss, no fuss), decent power and good tone this amp is a winner.

This is a pretty basic amp. Tuner out, tube Preamp, limiter, aural enhancer, Eq.

I like it because its really basic and idiot proof. Its also super boring sounding. Not bad, just not exciting.

I usually play a 76 pbass though it and it sounds fine. Its pretty loud and unoffensive. but really blah. No one will ever say anything bad about your bass tone with one of these, but nobody will ever say anything good either.

yeah, its seems pretty sturdy. I have had mine for like 5 or 6 years and its done fine. I have a slight buzz now, but I have really beat the crap out of it, so I will take the blame on that one.

never tried. isnt swr not around anymore?

its pretty ok. a great beginner amp. it takes a beating and sounds ok.

I think 1995. It has the red face. It is a good sounding amp. It is better not to use too much aural enhancer. It can add a lot of treble to your over all tone. Experiment especially with the midrange and boost. I would run the bass eq tone control close to or wide open. Two inputs for active and non-active basses. 225 watts at 8 ohm,350 at 4 ohm,400 at 2 ohm. Tube preamp and S.S. output. About 16 pounds. Less than 10 inchs deep. This head makes a MONSTER MONITOR AMP. Use the monitor out send from your P.A. head or board and go into the active input. The parametric eq can be dialed in with a touch of aural enhancer. You can run 4-8 ohm monitors of it. I'M telliing ya, once you try it you'll NEVER use anything else!

If you have a cab that can develope true low end 42HZ and lower this head can get you there. It can allso give you the high end needed for
slap tecnique. There is plenty of eq on this head. Run a 4 ohm cab and your running 350 watts. The tone and bass frequencies are tighter than the HARTKE 3500. I had one. Even with the slider eq the SWR is more flexible tonally. It is quiet except for the turn on thump. They are all like that. The limiter is defeatable. It is a good clean sounding machine.

I would not take a backup. I bought mine used. The first volume pot gets a little scratchy even after you clean it with a very good cleaner. I have nothing negative to say about it's dependability.

I have found that if you can send any unit back to the manufacturer
they usually fix it better, faster and cheaper than anyone else can.
That is IF they have there own service department.

I have been playing R&R for 40yrs. I would buy it again. It is very light. Makes a good bass or monitor amp. It is a well designed amp with a good size transformer in it. Thia is one of the amps that put SWR on the map.
DID I MENTION IT MAKES A FABULOUS MONITOR AMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1999 SWR 350 RedHead Bass Amp. Easy, basic power for bass players who value simplicity and straightforward amplification. Do wish it had lighted dials so that adjustments could be made in dark rooms. It had sufficient power for small to mid sized rooms but it did not have sufficient head room for larger venues. Solid State amp with tube pre-amp. XLR out was helpfull with many sound systems.

Used it primarily with Fender Jazz type basses. I'm an RnB type player so soloing in the upper register was not that important to me. The 350 fitted my style perfectly. It could be noisey in the wrong room. It didn't possess a ground lift switch so it could ge a bad hum from time to time. The lower registers would distort on this rig at high volumes towards the end of its run with me. This led to me trading it out for a Mesa Boogie 600 which I'm more than happy with.

Extremely reliable for the most part. Never failed to fire up. It developed a loud grumble/fart distortion when playing a low "A" on the "E" string. A change of tubes couldn't get rid of this distortion so I traded up to a Mesa Boogie. With the sale of SWR to Fender I wasn't to sure I wanted to keep this amp much longer in any case.

Never dealt with SWR, but since they're gone anyway I guess I doesn't really matter. They did promise me a shirt they never delivered however.

I've been playing bass for money off and on since 1968. I own a Mesa Boogie 600. My practice amp is an old Traynor Solid State. About 6 Bass guitars including a 1968 Fender Jazz and a 1968 Les Paul Recording Bass. It was sold so I obviously could live without it. With SWR changing hands I'd not buy a new one. Mesa Boogie is superior to this one in every way.

I bought this amp in 1999. I have used it with several different SWR Bass cabs (Triad, two Golliath Jr II 2x10, and even two Peavey 2x10 TX)The head has always preformed to my liking. The speaker defeat switch works great if you change basses a few times in a set. I have recorded using the amp and I am alsways impressed with the tone. I like the XLR out with the volume control for your line/direct out. I feel my bass sounds best with this head if I am using a bass cab with a "tweeter" and I am not talking about one of those you get in a box of cracker jacks.

I use the SWR with my Ken Smith Elite 5-string and a Fender Precision with EMG P&J active pickups, I also use it with my Upright bass when I need to have it. I primarily play jazz and from time to time some blues and R&B gigs. I play pizzicato, slap, tap, and chords, the amp along with my bass define "my sound". What I like about the head is that it is not noisy. I never have liked an amp that "hissed" with highs between song selections.

This amp has never let me down. I have owned two SWR Basic Blue small little 140 watts amp heads that never wanted to work right. But every other SWR head I have owned SM400, SM400s, Bass 350, Super Red head, Red head, even the workingmans 1x10 and 1x12 combo's have always been reliable. I have been using SWR since 1995 and have used many brands but for the last decade love the sound I get with the SWR.

Since they were bought by Fender, I have no comment. I have not had to get any support.

I have been playing since 1980 and this is the best sound for me. If the amp went KO or was stolen, I would buy another pre-Fender SWR bass head.

Everyone that plays bass should also realize from these reviews that there are many factors that make up a good or even great bass tone. The bass & amp have to have some chemistry in order to sound great. not all amps make my Ken Smith Elite 5 sound great. However, most every bass that I or one of my students have plugged in the SWR Bass 350 have always been impressed with the sound.

My suggestions is to play the head into the bass cabs you use and see if it is the tone that defines your "sound".

Mine is a red face 1996. I believe it weighs 16 pounds. It has enough power do pretty much any gig and will run at 2 ohms. I found the mid range a little strange to dial in but the head is very well built and I have used it in some really smokey bars and it keeps on going. The aural enhancer is a definite plus.

The sound of this head is okay with a passive bass but at times it seems lacking. It sounds much,much better with an active bass. The tone of the head comes alive.The preamp stage could use more gain when using a passive bass. Stainless steel strings are the way to go unless you like that moaning midrange tone in your mix. The 12ax7 preamp tube in this head sees 220 volts. I bought a used Telefunken 12ax7 and put it in. It gave the amp more tone, preamp gain and airyness. I run the bass control wide open and set the aural enhancer around 11. The bass control does'nt do much until you get to between 9 and 10. Treble can be brittle if pushed, could be warmer.

This amp is built like a brick shit house. The pc board is really thick. The tranny is high quality as the components. The manufacturer rates the BASS 350 to run at 2 ohms,that means it can run all day long at a 4 ohm load no problem. It has never given me a problem in the six years I have owned it.

I sent the head to SWR to check the limiter. I felt it engaged to soon. They adjusted it. I got it back almost immediately and the service charge was $32 and that included the shipping! How can you beat that!

I have been playing 39 years. I own many tube amps. Buy 2 of these heads used, get an A-B switch and 2 cabinets. Run one set up with more bass and mids(no treble),run the other rig with minimal bass and mids(just enough to make the cab sound warm) then tweak the treble to where you want it to be. I do this for all out door gigs. Incredible!

Siver Black Face version. Fits my style very well, rock, jazz, blues, RB, slap...you name it. Sometimes I wish I had more power but if 350 watts thru 2 Goliath Jr. 2s is not enough, then I need to go thru the main PA anyway. It's pretty damn punchy. I play mostly medium sized clubs and private parties...it's enough for that for sure.

Sounds great on everything. SWR pro series is very clear, I love this sound for my bass. Some guys like the Ampeg sound, I happen to not like it. To me, Ampegs sound muddy. It's all personal preference.

Just change the tube from time to time and you are good to go.

Not going to rate this category. SWR was very helpful, but having Fender help you is as useless as having tits on a bore.

Been playing 20+ years. Play an original Steinberger 4 string P model into 2 Goliath II Jrs. Sometimes I use my Goliath, but no longer take that to shows...just too heavy, the Jrs sound fine. I would buy another one (updated model) if lost or stolen. It's simple, reliable and sounds great. That's exactly what I want when I play out. I want to have fun jamming with the band and interacting with the audience, not tweaking on my gear. I use to own an SWR SM-400 bi-amped with the Golith for the top and an 18 on bottom. I spent half my time during every gig tweaking and dialing on my sound. It was not fun. With the Bass 350, I just plug in and go...much better deal.

Silver/Black face version.
Fan defeat is a god send in the studio.
Nicely powers 2 Euphonic Audio VL-208 cabs.
Tube pre complements these speakers very well.
I use it flat (I eq at instrument) so it's a 10 for my purposes.

Using it with my Conklin Custom 7 w/Lane Poors and Bart 18volt
as well as with my Lakland 55-94 and KSD-704 and Ibanez GB-10NT archtop guitar being fed by an Avalon U5 and feeding a pair of EA VL-208's. Sounds Brilliant when set flat. Very quiet.

Never had a problem with it.

Never had to call them.

Compared it to an EA Iamp 350 and a Crown DC-300AII(w/Avalon)
It had more clarity the the Iamp and matched the speakers better than the crown.
I got lucky when I found this one. I paid a high used price for it, but the condition was mint.

see other reviews - could do well with adjustable compressor or limiter, a second channel, an additional serial fx-loop (for flexibility); but its features function; fan is noisy indeed, I would prefer a fan that is constantly working but quiet;
btw - my Bass 350 has a limiter defeat switch - pulling the fx-level control which I always do as the limiter cuts in much too early;
another feature I miss: a level control for the DI-Out which is very loud if you take the signal post EQ and makes soundmen ask you to reduce Input Gain

see other reviews as well: I love it, it's my main amp, I get real warm tube-similar tones, fat enough for the rock covers we're playing, and you can get nice clear tones for slapping - to me it sounds a bit "thinner" at very low volumes

volume: this is a LOUD amp!!!! reading the other reviews I can only assume that the use of one single 8 ohm cab cuts the power (true, to about 200W which isn't much) or that the missing limiter defeat in other versions makes you loose power (I'd ask a repairman how to defeat the limiter - even without a switch)
I usually use the amp with a 2x10 SWR Goliath Junior II (4 Ohms) and a 1x15 ampeg cab (8 OHms; advantage: casters to wheel everything around) - so the amp runs at something like 3 Ohms, I think, and have never run out of power with it although my brother hits the drums hard most of the time! Sometimes I use a Green Audio (German brand) 4x10 (8 OHms) instead of the 1x15 (disadvantage: no casters ;-( ) and get a massive one-piece sound :-)

This is a very quiet amp (as far as the signal chain is concerned) - you get everything from very low frequencies to very crisp highs, still no hiss from the amp even if you crank up the treble on the amp! if you get hiss from your bass, of course, it's amplified ;-)

quite reliable, what happened so far? gain control got noisy and hatd dead spots once (an easy repair), fx send didn't send - maybe I bought the amp with that defect (used), only noticed while experimenting at home, don't use fx loop while gigging; gets ho, but according to SWR manuals the outside material is aluminium which keeps the amps light (one of the main advantages!) and radiates heat to the outside instead of the inner parts - I also own an (old) SM400 that does not even have a fan because of this philosophy ...

no idea, but the homepage is well done - you find a history of all older models + manuals for most of them there, if not for all of them

been playing for ..? 18 years, I think; would buy it again, as I can find it on e-bay for little money regularly ..
I love the sound, the ease to use, the little weight (18 lb)