SWR Headlight

[morrow]

One popped up locally for sale for a nice price , I know SWR has been gone for a while now but the seller swears everything is fine and says it's always been reliable .
It will just be used with an 8 ohm cab at low volume .
There seem to be a lot of stuff packed into a small package .

[4stringer77]

Go for it. I mean who doesn't need an aural enhancer? 

[morrow]

Snagged it for a song , downloaded the manual and had some quality time spinning the knobs and trying several basses . Didn't take long to dial in what I generally go for . Everything seems to work as it should , the fan is audible , but should not be an issue .
I like the aural enhancer , and the compressor . And the way the tone controls work .
I like it , it will take a little time to really get it , but I'm going to enjoy the ride .
I got lucky !

[morrow]

Well this has been an interesting rabbit hole . I keep me gig gear completely separate from my practice stuff . And we also spend a lot of time caring for my mother-in-law , so I have a practice rig at home , and another at the in-laws . Most of my practice time is at the in-laws .

My current in-law practice rig has been a little GK MB200 (recently repaired) into a tiny Phil Jones cab . I also use a tiny Hotone as a headphone amp . At home I've been using my backup GenzBenz head into an Ampeg 210 AV .

So one will now replace the GB head (also serviced last year) . I managed to find the manual for the SWR , and was thankful because that little thing is loaded . There's two aural enhancers , all of the eq pots also have a sweep , and there's a compressor in there , and a tube preamp . And despite all that I managed to find a tone that I liked ., and then went to compare it to the little GK . Surprise , surprise , I had two very different amps sounding pretty much the same . I guess we all carry around a concept of tone we like . I used several Danos and two shortscale Gibson basses for the shootout .

I'm going to continue comparing the two this week (no decision before it's time) , but I think I still slightly favour the GK , so it will stay with the Phil Jones cab , and the new (old) SWR will reside on top of the Ampeg cab at home . We'll see . It's easy to switch these little heads around .

I think that little SWR is one of my luckier kijiji finds . I got it for a hundred bucks . I'm aware that it will not be simple to repair if it goes down . But I don't think it's seen heavy use , should be fine for years .