The Steel Guitar Forum

I have a Hartke aluminum coned speaker I was thinking about sticking it in my Session 400 for the heck of it to see what the steel sounds like through it. It's a great sounding bass speaker. Anyone ever tried your steel in this type of combo before? Thanks in advance for your input.

I ran my Steel thru my Hartke 4x10 speaker cab when I had it, for my taste it was missing a whole lot of sonic notes. It was a closed back cab so possibly that was a drawback.

Now, I ran the Steel thru both a Fender and Peavey 4x10 Guitar amp( Deville and Classic 50) open back, and yes , it sounded really great to me, very much like the early Fender Steels , bright and twangy.....

I could do 10's and may...

Those speakers have a very limited frequency response and you'll be missing most upper-end harmonics and a lot of mids. Not recommended.

It was a closed back cab so possibly that was a drawback.

I don't know why closed-back would be a "drawback". Fender and Marshall have used closed-back cabs for their head/cab setups for decades, as have just about every other maker. A closed-back cab can help tighten up loose bass as well, a nice thing to have for D10 players.

I tried out a Hartke bass amp with the aluminum speakers in a music store and didn't even like it for "country" bass. If I were playing rock "lead" bass it may have been OK

Why Jack, I didn't know you played rock "lead" bass?

Well for my taste, as long as we are talking Hartke, the absolute best overall Bass tones and response I have ever gotten, was with my Fender J bass ( 62 Stack Knob RI ) thru the Hartke 350 amp with the Hartke AL. cone 4x10 cab. For me. Evidently for many others as well, I have always been told my rig sounds great, not the playing, the rig !

Strings, Bass and style of playing are paramount with Bass players and tone. A Player using a heavy pick will have much more attack and a totally different sound than one who uses his fingers and adjusts the attack for each note.

The guys I work with use David Eden cabs with AL. cone 10's...I am always in awe of there sound...

Personally I've never been a fan of Hartke's even for bass, but my idea of good bass tone involves flatwounds, and there's a "tick" at the beginning of a note (using fingers) that Hartke's just seemed to lose completely. I suspect that as Jim said they'd be terrible with steel.

On the other hand, I'm looking for speakers for a drum module amplifier, and they might be just the ticket. Can you say "cone excursion"? I was afraid the kick would turn a normal speaker inside out.

-eric

My impression of Hartke speakers is that they do single notes well, and low notes (with a sharp attack) especially well. However, they don't fare too well on chords, especially expanded chords. The cones are very stiff, and that doesn't seem to allow for the articulation necessary for producing both high and low notes at the same time.

Hartke KM-200 - OK steel guitar amp...
Anything else - A lot better steel guitar amp