Shout out to Hartke Customer Service

Blue Dragon

Blue Dragon

Jan 4, 2016
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#1
I'm a lowly, poor bass player with 3 small amps. A B20 Acoustic for home practice, a Fender Rumble 500C that's unfortunately located in S. Florida for the time being, and a Hartke 115C 250w that is my main amp (through PA for playing out though).

I bought the Hartke a couple months ago for $200. Sounds pretty good but soon I found it had a jack problem (and only 1 input jack). Wiggly and static and drops out occasionally till I wiggle it again. Pain in the butt. I tried to lock it down myself with my meager hardware skills but it broke loose again. (Plastic threads can only do so much.)

Fortunately one of our guitar players is a repair guy and offered to fix it for me. He just told me he called Hartke to ask what kind of jack it was and they are sending a replacement for free & free shipping. I'm sure it wouldn't have been $$$ anyway, but I still think that's damn good customer service for a probably 10 year old amp.

So this is my shout out to Hartke. I love my Rumble frankly, but their stock just went up in my estimation to JUST below Fender anyway! At least among the price sensitive brands.
 
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#5
That hasn’t been my experience, but I’m glad you guys got your issues fixed. I had a question about tolex on the hydrive cabinets. The kid that answered the phone didn’t know what tolex was, and when I tried to message the company FB, they didn’t respond. I tried emailing and got no response. So I had Sandi Hartke on Instagram and asked if it was ok to ask her a question on there and she told me to Google it (I kind of get her being stand offish because she probably deals with a lot of BS from people on there). They make a good product, but their CS leaves a lot to be desired (in my case anyway).
 
#7
Mingo Sanders said:
What does it mean to "have" somebody on Instagram?

Anyway, what is your question about tolex? People here can probably help you.
Click to expand...

I follow her, or whatever is the correct terminology. I just wanted to know what tolex they use on the Hydrive 410. I have 2 of them, and I scratched one a few times loading in and out. I wanted to re-tolex the cab, but I wanted to make sure it matched the other one.
 
#8
I have that problem with my LH500 .. they don't use the old proven solid metal female jack connectors anymore.. its a plastic modular connector that is soldered to the amp chassis... you have to solder it to the mother board... saving money i guess but not practical for continuous use. might try to add a washer to it to tighten it better.
 
#10
dbase said:
I have that problem with my LH500 .. they don't use the old proven solid metal female jack connectors anymore.. its a plastic modular connector that is soldered to the amp chassis... you have to solder it to the mother board... saving money i guess but not practical for continuous use. might try to add a washer to it to tighten it better.
Click to expand...
Why not just have it fixed properly by a QUALIFIED service tech. There is nothing inherently wrong with a jack soldered directly to the PCB if it's done well.
 
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#11
So I spoke to Sandi again. I must have misinterpreted the tone of her first message. She was very pleasant. She didn’t really know how to get the answer, but she tried to help.
 
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