Anyone owned a Swart AST and Sportsman 1x12

AllthegearNoidea

Looking for opinions etc as a bedroom amp.

peteri

No but I've played the AST and owned a Skylark.

AST, I would say you really need an attenuator - the night light from Swart is excellent (think that's the name).

I spent a day at Coda with a decibel meter testing one with Carr amps too.

The Swart sounded amazing once I had the attenuation and could crank the amp and control the volume externally.

I walked away with a Carr Skylark, cost more money - but much more flexible, a massive range of sounds and built in attenuation.

On the Skylark - I used it at home in a flat for 18 months, wonderful amp

xchrisv

The Swart is one of my favourite amps of all time (I’ve gigged and recorded the hell out of mine for about five years) but isn’t a bedroom amp unless you only want to play clean – it might only be 18-20 watts but it’s comfortably loud enough to gig with, especially with an efficient speaker. I’d look at the smaller five watt version for home use. It’s a magic amp though – unbelievably pretty sounding and the way it just hangs onto notes never gets old. 

Its definitely worth looking at the new Lazy J J10LC too – it works brilliantly at sensible volumes and does everything from harmonically rich cleans to fuzzy 5E3 meltdown. 

AllthegearNoidea

chrisv said:

The Swart is one of my favourite amps of all time (I’ve gigged and recorded the hell out of mine for about five years) but isn’t a bedroom amp unless you only want to play clean – it might only be 18-20 watts but it’s comfortably loud enough to gig with, especially with an efficient speaker. I’d look at the smaller five watt version for home use. It’s a magic amp though – unbelievably pretty sounding and the way it just hangs onto notes never gets old. 

Its definitely worth looking at the new Lazy J J10LC too – it works brilliantly at sensible volumes and does everything from harmonically rich cleans to fuzzy 5E3 meltdown. 

Thanks very much. I will check out both suggestions.

Powerslave

Swart AST Master can be used as a clean or crunchy amp at home in the bedroom if you don't mind flicking the controls to setup for either mode. Not really a (hard) rock amp, but blues and early classic rock do-able.

Great amp, but I found mine a touch mid-heavy (maybe by design) at low settings, and so perhaps not distortion pedal friendly if you want more gain at home.

Wound-up at a gig and using your guitar to ride the volume (in either setting) makes for great tone.

Not cheap if buying new, though.