The Hammond B3 is the real thing but the clones are getting closer to the real thing. My how far we've come in just the last ten years or so! Remember the early clones weren't very realistic. But today things have changed. They are much much better and they don't cost an arm and leg.

Here is a jazz player who actually compares a real B3 with a Hammond XK-3 clone. The demo was made in 2009 and he also mentions the newer model XK-3c which provides several improvements over the XK-3. You can judge for yourself but in my opinion the XK-3/c is practically indistinguishable from the real thing. It should be noted he was running both through a Leslie speaker system.

The big difference is a real B3 weighs a ton (figuratively speaking, but really really heavy nonetheless) and you need a road crew to haul it around. On the other hand, the Hammond XK-3c is fairly portable at 43 lbs and you can also micro edit the tone-wheel settings to customize it to your liking.

PS: If you want to skip the formalities the playing starts at 2:30.



All the best, Mike