SWR SM-900

This amp was made in 1997 and is the one with the black face and purple screening. The amp is very versatile for and style of play that you want. The amp has 2 semi-parametric eq section that gives this amp a variety of settings that you cant get with most amps. You also have the ability to combine the 2 eq's which provides more power and selectivity. With 900W of power I will never have to worry about having enough power!Has a tube and solid state section which is nice. I had been looking for the older model of these amps because I heard that they were the ones to get because they sound and are put together a bit better than the newer ones. The older ones are hard to find because most people hold on to these but I lucked out!

GREAT! I've played through a variety of different amps from Edens, Ampegs, Hartke's and Trace Elliot's and this SWR SM-900 takes a back seat to none of them. You can get great punch, growl and smoothness out of this baby!! It covers it all. I'm very happy with this amp

So Far So Good! No Issue....

Havent had to call them and dont plan on having to call them

Overall, this amp is a keeper and I would recommend this amp to anyone that is looking for a very nice and reliable bass amp for giggin'.

The amp was made 1998 (black surface and purple screen). The amp is super clean and transports the tone of my Abe Rivera 6 string contra bass guitar absolutely true. The amp has plenty of power. I usually run it in mono mode. The Bi-Amping features are nice but I am not a fan of cutting of frequencies my cabinet is able to reproduce. In regards to styles the EQ section gives all sound possibilities one desires.

No matter which one of my basses I use the EQ section gives me all possibilities to dial in my sound. Basically I push the EQ around 80 Hz, take off 9 db around 250 and give it another push (2 db) at 500 and 1KHz. Of course it depends on the bass and style of plucking. I am playing bass for over 25 years and used all big names in terms of amplification - this is the real deal. IN my opinion for all styles of music.

I had it out 10 - 20 times so far. Since the chasis is constructed in a way to transport the heat it does get warm. I built it into the bottom space of a 4 HE rack in order to give the amp the ability to breathe. So far I did not have any problems.

When i bought the amp used I noticed the SWR feet and screws are missing but are inportant for the stability of the chasis. Since I am based in Germany I contacted SWR support in the US. They replied in a matter of hours and put me in contact with the fender support in germany. Again, they were repliyng in no time. They ended up ordering the parts and a few days later they were in my mailbox. TRhey did not charge me a thing - Extremely pleasing considering the fact I did not generate any revenue for them

Superb - I said it all above

This Amp was built in 1998 (Black Face Purple Screen). I bought it used a few month ago. In terms of features this amp has all I need. Personally I do not like Biamping since it cuts certain frequencies from the speaker cabinets as discribed in the SWR manual. The Aural Enhancer is superb. I play with it from time to time but usually set at around 2 0??clock. The EQ section gives you all possibilities to react to different locations and styles - it can also mess up your sound if used in the unexperienced in terms of frequencies. Again, this unit has all features I desire.

I play the amp with my Abe Rivera six string contra bass guitar mostly. The amp delivers the signal coming from the bass beautifully.I use a son of bertha cabinet (Sometimes two son of bertha??s if I play rock projects and have to compete with big guitar sounds). Usually I lower frequencies around 250 HZ to clean up the mud and push it around 80 Hz (low EQ) 500 Hz (Mid EQ 1) and 1 KHz (Hogh EQ) a little and set the treble to 9 o??clock. The sound this amp produces simply is beautifully clean and transparent. I play bass professionally for over 25 years and tried many other well known manufacturers - This amp is the best.

I took it out to play for the last two month - so far I experienced no problems. The amp does get hot during usage and I made sure to give it enough air to breath. I mounted it in a 4 HE rack and left both upper HE??s blank to allow some air to reach the top of the amp.

When I got the amp I noticed the original feet and screws were missing. In order to get help I contacted WSR support in the states (I am based in germany). I received feedback a few hours later. In order to get help I was put in contact with fender support in germany. Again, response time was rather rapid. A few hours later they ordered the parts and I received them a few days later. I have to say - great support - I mean its not like this generated any revenue at all since they did not charge me for a thing - not even the shipping.

I guess I said it all - Go get one and make up your own mind

There's a few features on it I've never used. It has a crossover where you can send the lows to a sub and high to another cabinet. I don't use the footswitch either to change EQ's. I also don't use the limiter. But I admire the 3-band semi-parametric EQ and Stereo/Mono power amp. It's nice to have volume knob for one cab and a seperate volume for another cab.

Crisp and clean, the way a bass amp should sound (not like those ronchy-sounding SVT tube amps.) I picked the SWR tone over Ampeg, GK, Eden and a bunch of over top names in the industry. I think SWR provides the best tone for Latin electric bass.

Never had a problem with it. I've had it for about 3 years now. The fan is a little noisy but it shuts off when the amp cools down.

It's a beauty. The first time I plugged into one was at a festival some years ago where they had it set up with the matching 4x10 and 15 cabs. I fell in love with it and eventually ended up getting one.

it's a standard in modern music.

it get a little 50/60 Hz hum noise.. the sound it's very clean.
in order to reduce or to eliminate the 50 Hz noise found in mine sm400s and also in the sm900 that I have tried,it is necessary to isolate electrically the left part of the front panel from the rest of the chassis (3 screws near the passive and active inputs), because it generates a loop of galvanic currents originated by the power transformer.Very important: I also isolated the internal surfaces of chassis on rear of this 3 screws whit a thin plastic sheet.
You can use some plastic screw but this could compromise the mechanical rigidity of the chassis or (best option) the original 3 screws whit,for ex., a teflon or similar insulators, but remember that: 3 normal flat washer aren't sufficient to make a good job.I've employed also a plastic supplied equipment insulators of mine Korg DTR-1000 tuner, so I can use the SWR preamp,noise free,in studio recording appications.
I'm a electronic thec, and I know it do.I strongly recommend to make to execute this operation only by qualified thecnician, because it can be dangerous for your safety and the functionality of your amplifier.
if you are questions, pls email me.

never broken down.

I loved SWR pre-Fender,by e-mail i received how to get a phantom power protection in XLR out in 2 days...
Later, (on Fender age..) I asked another thech question, and no result.. I think he's a too big company.

I play over 20 years ago..

I bought this amp I think in 1999. I play everything from R&B to southern rock. The amp has great sound and good features. Plenty of power, although I run it bridged throught a 4 by 10 cab.

I play an Alembic Mark King Signature 5 string and the amp has great tone shaping with the semi-parametric EQ's.

Here is the problem area with this amp. It runs really hot. It has failed a couple of times on outdoor gigs. The fan does not draw in any cool air from outside. It just moves the are inside the amp. I finally installed a fan on the back of my rack and that seemed to keep it cooled down OK. The next problem was one side of the amp started sounding distorted. I took it to a tech recommended by Fender. They said they had it fixed, but when I got it home it still had the same problem. I took it back and after several hours of bench time they said the problem was dirt in the stereo/mono switch. I'm sure it was the fan I installed on the rack caused it. The amp is still working, but I don't feel comfortable taking it to gigs so I bought an Ampeg SVT Pro 4. It doesn't sound a good but it works everytime and sounds good enough for club gigs.

I found a tech, but it took two trips to get it repaired.

Great amp for studio and rehearsal work. I don't trust it for gigging

I got this amp new in 2001. This amp has plenty of features and an eq-ing section that's very precise. It's bi-amp-able, if you're into that sort of thing. It's got a lot of power- I've never had to get the volumes up to the 12:00 area. Tube preamp, a decent line out, effects loop, 2 foot switchable channels. It's also really nice that you can run both EQ channels at the same time. My only issue with the features is the semi-parametric EQ sections. It takes some time to figure the EQ out. After quite a bit of playing around with it, I've got the settings written down, and I haven't changed them much at all. I'm giving it a 7 because the EQ is not really easy to work with.

The amp sounds pretty kickass when it's running. I've used it in a rock band, a pop/rock band and a metal band. I've used it with my 65 Jazz Bass, my G&L L-2000 and my 79 Gibson Thunderbird. It suits the L-2000 and the Jazz best.

I have little faith in the reliability of this amplifier.

This amp was purchased brand new, I was the person to actually remove it from the box from the factory. Right off the bat, there was a loose screw that didn't seem to belong anywhere (the store's repair {SWR qualified} guy is the one who made that determination. The DI was wired incorrectly; the power LED was either defective or there was an intermittant connection or cold solder joint on that. The first year I owned it, as I recall, it was in the shop SEVEN times.

I had a lot of problems with the amp overheating and blowing output fuses. Seriously, the rack handles would get too hot to touch after an hour of playing time. I let the SWR certified repair guy do all the diagnostics. I left the amp settings as they were, so he could see if maybe I was pushing too much low end or something. He ended up changing the fan from an off/on thing to a low/hi thing. The fan was always on, and when the fan would normally engage, it switches to a higher setting. It still kept overheating.

This is what I figured out. The fan is located in the middle of the amp, and it blows across the heat sinks. Ideally, that hot air is expelled from the amp through a grate on the side. There are three places this goes wrong. First, the amp passively draws in cool air from the back of the amp, second, there's an inch of space between the heat sink and the vent in the wall of the amp- so only SOME of the hot air being blown through the heat sink actually exits the chassis of the amplifier, the rest of the hot air is recycled inside the amp to be blown through the heat sink again. Third, the amp is designed to be in a rack, however- when using an SKB rack, there's around one inch or less between the wall of the rack and the wall of the amp- couple this with the air being passively drawn into the back of the amp... The hot air that does manage to be expelled out of the chassis of the amp is filling up the rack case, and then drawn back into the amp to ostensibly cool the amp. While some fresh, cool air does enter the back of the rack, inside the rack case it's HOT.

What I ended up doing is mounting a three inch computer fan to the upper rack rail to draw the hot air out of the rack, to allow fresh, cool air into the rack to cool the amp. Since doing this, I've had no problems with the amplifier, however I still keep output fuses taped to the wall of the rack.

Although most of my experience with pre-Fender SWR support was from another,previous issue, the bad taste they left with me lingers to this day. They were less than helpful with the problems I experienced with this amp. The warranty did, however, cover the costs of most of the problems experienced with this amp.

Is that a diplomatic way of stating it?

I've been playing for around 25 years. I had never "blown" an amp prior to my first SWR amp in 1999-2000. I really like solid state bass amps, my "backup" amps are two, 20+ year old Seymour Duncan 300x300w amps, previously I've used a GK800RB and a Yamaha- all solid state. The blackface Bassman amps (Bassmen?) amps and the Showman amp that I've used as bass heads didn't really work for me. I like to think of myself as relatively experienced and relatively knowlegable. I have a pretty good understanding of the concept of impedance and the concept of "overworking" an amp with too much bottom end... This amp was purchased because I absolutely loved my SWR cabs and the SWR reputation- REGARDLESS OF THE EXCEPTIONALLY BAD experience I had with a previous SWR amp and their exceptionally bad customer support handling of that situation, I was still confident that an SWR amp would be a good, solid purchase. I've had the amp for around 4.5 years now. I specifically didn't post a review while I was attempting to get the bad issues resolved, because I wanted to be as fair as possible. Overall, the amp sounds great- it take some time and some tweaking to get it to sound right, but the reliability issues take away whatever greatness this amp could be to me. If I didn't have so much money wrapped up into this amp, and I could get another reliable amp for it- I'd do it in a heartbeat. If the amp were stolen, I would NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS BUY ANOTHER SWR AMPLIFIER!!! Not just based on this amp, but the issues of my previous SWR amp and their outstandingly crappy customer support. Regardless of being bought out by Fender, and regardless of the joy the SWR cabinets have given me, the two flagship model SWR amplifiers I have owned (Bass 750 and SM-900) have not only been duds, but have been the most unreliable excuses for bass amplification I have experienced.

I'm not sure exactly what year mine was made, but it's an almost spotless Purple-face (pre-Fender, no red stripe, no Neutrik connectors). Everybody here has raved about the EQ, and so far I'm still playing with it, trying to figure out its limits. I'm certainly not unhappy with it. I stepped up to this amp from an old but loved SM-400s, and thought I had a decent idea of what I was getting. I hate to admit it, because I love my 400s, but the 900 sounds even better. The so far it's got more power than I've been able to put to use with the gigs I've brought it on, but it's nice to have the headroom.

A couple things I haven't seen mentioned yet is that while not recommended in the manual, this amp will actually handle a 2ohm load (like a Goliath and a Big Ben on each side ) without complication as long as you're not going full bore, and the nifty little mute feature when you pull the cable. Most folks don't realize it, but at least on the older SWRs you can just pull the cable out of the input without fear of popping or anything and it mutes the preamp. Nice feature. Very handy when switching instruments, taking five, etc..

Currently I'm using a Schack U6R with this amp, through a Goliath II. I'll probably get a second Goliath II so I can make more full use of the power of this cabinet, as well as stereo features.

For versatility this amp is pretty nuts. It's super clean, but still has enough grease from the tube in the front end to be good and pissed off. It's pretty much silent except when turned up to about 90%, and then what amp isn't gonna give you a little hiss? If I need it to sound dirtier, I can always use some processing in the effects loop and my tube pre (Hughes&Kettner B.A.T.T.) to get some more dirt into the mix.

One thing that did kinda make me wonder about the preamp design was the fact that when I swapped out the 12ax7 with a 5751 I got all kinds of hum. I tried a couple of 5751'a and they all did he same thing: humming as soon as they were warmed up. However, those same tubes work just fine in my SM-400s, so obviously the preamp design has changed at least somewhat. That said, I guess I'm satisfied with the 12ax7 tone that the 900's preamp delivers.

So far SWR gear in general has treated me right. It's built to last. However I'm just a little bit less comfortable with the 900 than the 400s due to the fact that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in the 400s has fuses wired into the circuits, and I didn't see that in the 900. Everything in the 900 seems to be wired off of just a couple fuses.

When I first got my 400s, a speaker cable caused a short inside due to a bent back panel (somebody dropped it on the banana jack). Because of the design, I was able to simply open the case, bend the contacts out of the way to avoid a repeat occurence, then buy another of the correct fuse and solder in place of the old one. No fried FETs, no fried boards, no fried transformer. If something like that had happened to the 900 I don't know that the repair would have been nearly as easy. Still, it seems well enough built that unless I really mistreat it, it's going to do me right.

Haven't needed it, but don't expect much from Fender.

I've been playing bass now for 17 years, and this is definately one of the nicest amps I've played, as well as being the most useful thus far. If it were stolen or lost I'd try to find another exactly like it. I love pretty much everything about it except the rear-mounted power switch. Nothing realy to hate about it for me. I've played on loads of other amps: Ampeg, Mesa, Trace, Fender, Eden, Peavey, Walter Woods, Dumble, Acoustic Image, Crate, EBS, Glockenklang, etc. and various models of each. While it doesn't sound like any of the others mentioned, maybe a bit like Eden but nicer, it has a tone that does a wonderful job for whatever technique I want to use in whatever style I happen to be playing. It's no B-15 Fliptop, and it's not a SVT. It's super articulate and so far it's been loud enough for any gig I've had.

If I could change anything about this amp, it might be to add extra fuses to the circuits like in the SM-400s, and relocat the power switch to the front panel.

SWR's top of the line amp. The one i got my grubby little hands on is the latest '05 model with all the bells and wistles the other guys have already explained. Tube pre, stereo solid state rear (stereo with bridge/mono option), aural enhancer, bass, treble, variable crossover etc. The greatest feature is the dual 3 band semi-parametric EQ. Great for mutiple style players (for example set one for finger picking and the other for slap, so when you go into a big slap solo, change the EQ with the footswitch so your sound doesn't just disapear into the stage mix when you need it the most!) or for players with multiple basses the 2 bands make it easy to keep your settings without having to change them when changing bass. The crossover function is nice but i never use it, and the limiter is also nice but again i never use it (kills my sound) and just keep an eye on the power amp clip LED.

I play in a rock/funk/metal group and a jazz/swing/blues group so i need a versatile amp and this one delivers. I use an Ibanez 305DX (stock standard) and for a "cheap" bass it has an almost as good sound as my mates musicman bongo, which is the next type of bass im gonna have to buy. The amp powers a Goliath 3 (4x10") and a Son of Bertha (1x15") in bridge/mono mode in the rock group, and lets just say i have the guitarist, his marshall all valve head and qaudie begging for mercy at the jam sesions (we play way to loud). Not only is this head loud but clean at any volume, perhaps a little to clean for rock but perfect for funk (with those caps its super puchy and tight). When Jazzin' it up i generally only use the bertha (single 15") and one side of the amp to keep the weight down and really even a qaudie as a stand alone is to much for jazz (ever walked into a jazz bar with a big rig like this one and seen the owner s#!t himself and ask "so how loud do you play?"?). This setup is perfect for all my needs and with the extensive EQ the sound im after is always just a bit of fiddling away.

Now we get to the gripe stage. Here we go.
When running this amp in stereo mode (each side individually)the left amp is as quiet as a graveyard but the right has an annoying little hum that becomes even louder when the amp is run in bridge/mono. The blokes down at Soundworks (the local fender repairers) couldn't identify what would be causing such a problem, everything was as it should be and running perfectly. Eventually they concluded that the problem lies in the layout of the internal components. Without tech talk here lets just say the power supply is to close to the right side amp and is causing problems. A design flaw.

Only had it 6 months so i cant be to sure yet but so far nothing terminal or major. However the noise i explained earlier is a little worrying.

It just takes to long and responses are always generic and in conclusive. It took almost a week for a response regarding the noise and when the did respond it was a case of "Take it to one of our authorised repairers". Thanks for nothing guys, thats what i'd already done. However i was lucky, the bloke i bought this amp off is an SWR endorser and has contacts in the engineering department so when you bypass the dickheads at the front desk you can get somewhere.

I've been playing for 5 years now and in that time i've basically tryed everything, Ampeg, SWR, Hartke, Mesa, Warwick, Trace Elliot and Eden and the only thing that comes close to my SWR, in particular the
SM-900, is Eden. If you understand the history between steve W Rabe and David Eden its not hard to understand why.
Clean and crisp yet still warm describes both SWR and Eden but the 900 has features to burn so it has my vote. However things to be aware of are the hum and the crappy customer service, if you can get over these you have an almost unbeatable amp yet it left me a little dissapointed to spend so much money and have the little problems ive had.

All the other guys pretty much explained it, 900 watt stereo amp with extensive EQ, tube preamp, bi amp capabilities, and a built in limiter. Pretty sweet.

Using my Warwick equipped with EMG J's, running through a Goliath 3 and an Ampeg 4x8. I get a huge, growly tone from this beast and with my custom Warmoth 6-string, it faithfully reproduces every bit of the far reaching tonal spectrum this bass provides, and very well I might add. I always set the gain as high as possible and I tend to roll the treble off a bit. With the massive EQ section you can pretty much sculpt any tone out of this thing. I was lucky that I got a Pre-fender (I believe) version of this amp, it was made in 2000. A great amp with a great tone.

Heres the small issue I had with this. I got this amp off of ebay and the guy shipped it to me in god awful packaging and when I plugged it in it seemed to be putting out about 10 watts. I was severely bummed. But thank god it was under warranty. So I took it to a good tech and then fender proceded to dick around with us about the parts needed to fix the amp. When I finally got them, the guy installed them and the amp has worked flawlessly since.

Fender is shit. I had to light a pretty big fire under their pants in order to get them to do something. But I cant be too mad because my amp works beautifuly now.

Great amp and I got it for a pretty good deal. Very accurate sound and all the power you will ever need. If it were stolen I would check out other products just in case, but this amp kicks so I would probably go back to it.