SWR Sound Corporation
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| Private | |
| Genre | Musical equipment |
| Founded | Sylmar, California (1983) |
| Founder | Steve W. Rabe |
| Headquarters | Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S. |
| Products |
bass guitar amplifiers preamps speaker cabinets acoustic guitar amplifiers |
| Website | http://www.swramps.com/ |
SWR Sound Corporation is a specialist manufacturer of bass guitar amplifiers, preamps, speaker cabinets, and acoustic guitar amplifiers.
The company was founded as SWR Engineering, Inc. by its namesake, Steve W. Rabe. Rabe was known for his engineering work at Acoustic Control Corporation. After extensive research with top Los Angeles studio bassists, SWR released its first commercial product in 1984, the PB-200 hybrid tube/solid-state bass guitar amplifier. The first 5 units were manufactured by hand in a garage in the San Fernando Valley. This model soon became the SM-400. SWR then pursued development of a speaker cabinet to accompany its amps. In 1986, SWR released the Goliath, a 4 x 10" full-range speaker cabinet with a built-in horn tweeter, a first for bass cabinets.
The company's name was changed to SWR Sound Corporation on 1 December 1997 as part of a restructuring plan. Rabe sold the company to accountant Daryl Paul Jamison and soon created a new company, Raven Labs. SWR was based in Sylmar, California until January 1999, when it moved to the former Cetec Gauss speaker factory in nearby Sun Valley, California. On 2 June 2003, Jamison sold SWR to Fender Musical Instruments Corporation for a rumored $8 million, after a previous year of lagging SWR sales and dwindling market share. Jamison reportedly tried to sell to Fender a year earlier for a larger sum, but this failed to materialize.
SWR is now a brand in Fender's portfolio rather than an independent company and its products are now manufactured at Fender's facilities in Corona, California and Ensenada, Baja California. Fender is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.
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