Whoever claimed that 20 watts wasn't enough...

[musicbox]

Whoever claimed that 20 watts wasn't enough for a band situation can pay for my noise violation :lol: Got a '73 deluxe reverb today, loaded 'er with JJ's, and prompty had Constable Hilliard at my door reminding me that tube wattage means a helluva lot more than ss. One up to my Avatar 2x12 - there are boutique amps that don't sound this good! Anyone that claims they need a 150 watt tripple rec is obviously smoking the wrong pot.

 

[screamingdaisy]

I regularily crank my Recto.....200w of all tube mayhem. :twisted:

It's a good thing I have cool neighbours. I had the cops called on me once, but those people moved last summer. :lol:

 

[cvansickle]

There's always the HotPlate. A low wattage cranked amp with one of these can bring tears to your eyes. I ran my Blue Angel in the 6V6 mode (18 watts) recently with a 4ohm HotPlate and turned up all the way. At -16 decibels, lower actually, nobody outside my house could hear it and it still sounded great.

 

[musicbox]

im pickin up my blue angel today! ill leave the amp on the el84 or simuclass mode, and then the deluxe reverb will take care of the 6v6 sound; i'll use my morley AB to mix it up. keeley modded BD-2 will be in the mail soon enough to drive it :twisted:

 

[cvansickle]

I mostly keep mine in Simul-Link. Love that setting for loud cleans.

 

[dylan7620]

i love how mesa underates their amps... kinda reminds me of the old muscle cars and how the manufactures would say they have less horsepower than what they really had.

im gettin musicboxs nomad today and thats 45w.... that should be enough for a while, until im playing in arenas, lol. then again, there is that extreme setting. :twisted:

 

[axwielding1]

Hey dylan, thanks for the reply on the "ibanez" thread...
I LOVE the nomad 45 2-12... Excellent amp, and plenty toneful and loud....
ax. :twisted:

 

[no soul]

i love how mesa underates their amps... kinda reminds me of the old muscle cars and how the manufactures would say they have less horsepower than what they really had.

im gettin musicboxs nomad today and thats 45w.... that should be enough for a while, until im playing in arenas, lol. then again, there is that extreme setting. :twisted:

They dont really. It just depends on whose standard for rating wattage you go by.

The more traditional rating system was done by rating the amp before clipping, which more or less became an accepted standard. Point being, that the amount of watts you have going through an amp isnt a static thing.

And actually a 45w should be just fine for arenas, thats why they have PA system. A huge wall of amps is purely for show.

 

[axwielding1]

I have an old Gibson 1-10 amp, with 2 EL84's, and drive it with a TS9/TS808, extremely modded . This thing sings, and is very loud. The only thing is the crappy cab, which is a 3/4 back, but doesn't keep it together well, doesn't cut. So I'm thinking of building a cab, hardwood, and putting in 2 greenbacks. Then I'll have something sweet! Right now it is a practice amp, and gets a nice vintage Marshall tone when driven.
But, it's plenty loud, and you can really push those EL84's to clip!
ax. :twisted:

 

[Zerberus]

Whoever claimed that 20 watts wasn't enough for a band situation can pay for my noise violation :lol: Got a '73 deluxe reverb today, loaded 'er with JJ's, and prompty had Constable Hilliard at my door reminding me that tube wattage means a helluva lot more than ss. One up to my Avatar 2x12 - there are boutique amps that don't sound this good! Anyone that claims they need a 150 watt tripple rec is obviously smoking the wrong pot.

While I agree to a point, I challenge anybody to play one of my gigs with less than a 2x20 and two 2x12s..... AND be heard.. I feel quite comfy woth 2 4x12s and a 50:50 stereo

If heads and stacks had no merit, They wouldn´t have survived this long... Not just on the sole "I need power" mentality of most guitarists....

In other words, while for most bedroom or rehearsal players 20 watts in a 1x12 or 2x12 combo will probably be enough, but as soon as you get to large stages and crowds those 20 watts can disappear reeeal quick, especially if the PA sucks... I´ve measured CROWD noise at >80 DB before, at that gig there was no way any 20 watter could have kept up, I was almost dimed on my rig... ANd I have the advantage of needing not much power at all to cut through because of my unique band situation..

 

[exposeenmity]

Whoever claimed that 20 watts wasn't enough for a band situation can pay for my noise violation :lol: Got a '73 deluxe reverb today, loaded 'er with JJ's, and prompty had Constable Hilliard at my door reminding me that tube wattage means a helluva lot more than ss. One up to my Avatar 2x12 - there are boutique amps that don't sound this good! Anyone that claims they need a 150 watt tripple rec is obviously smoking the wrong pot.

Sorry, but that's a falicy. Tube watts are NOT louder than SS watts. 1 watt = 1 watt, always, there's no if and or buts about it. The amount of watts an amp outputs has no affect on its loudness. What is a measure of loudness is decibels. The reason some amps rated at the same output sound louder or quieter is because of how they are designed. Watts do not automatically equate volume.

 

[musicbox]

generally speaking..20 tube rated watts are 20 watts before breakup occurs...generally about 11:00-12:00 on the dial. so when you have the amp cranking at 3:00..welll... it means that an amp rated for 20 watts means alot more buisness than a ss which is rated at peak output...

 

[exposeenmity]

generally speaking..20 tube rated watts are 20 watts before breakup occurs...generally about 11:00-12:00 on the dial. so when you have the amp cranking at 3:00..welll... it means that an amp rated for 20 watts means alot more buisness than a ss which is rated at peak output...

So, let me get this straight: what you're basically saying is that tube amps aren't rated at peak output, but solid state amps are. :lol: :roll:

 

[Mrmot]

generally speaking..20 tube rated watts are 20 watts before breakup occurs...generally about 11:00-12:00 on the dial. so when you have the amp cranking at 3:00..welll... it means that an amp rated for 20 watts means alot more buisness than a ss which is rated at peak output...

So, let me get this straight: what you're basically saying is that tube amps aren't rated at peak output, but solid state amps are. :lol: :roll:

on most tube amps i saw it says (if not on the amp then in the manual) x watts RMS, and on most SS amps it says only watts what in mosta cases means PPL

and to answer to the OP, i put the master volume on my studio22 at about 3 when rehearsing with my band.
20 watts not loud enough = bollocks

 

[screamingdaisy]

Hmmm.....another thread back from the dead.

Anyway, I have both 20w and 100w amps. Both are really freakin' loud, but it's hella hard to get a good clean tone out of a 20w amp at gig volume.

 

[musicbox]

what im saying is, solid state power amps arent designed to clip. at all. when you have the volume dimed, your getting the rated output. on a 50 watt ss marshall, thats 50 watts. when you dime an f50, your not getting 50 watts. your getting closer to 90. picking holes in my language isnt going to change that fact.

 

[exposeenmity]

solid state power amps arent designed to clip. at all.

Really? Hm, could have sworn that ss amps use ss diodes that clip in order to get distortion. :roll: What you're saying is that tube amps clip more at higher volumes equaling more distortion, while ss amps clip at lower levels. Regardless of how the signal is clipped, if an amp is rated at x watts, it will put out x watts. If you have a triple recto rated at 150 watts and crank it all the way, you think you're going to get more watts out of it than it's rated at? Sorry, but no.

Again, a wattage rating DOES NOT equate to volume.

*Edit: Taken from the Mesa/Boogie site:

Power:
Let's dispell a few myths about wattage right now. First watts don't measure audio volume, decibles do. So, when you're trying to judge whether the amp you buy will be loud enough for your band, it will be prudent to concern yourself with the "decible to watt ratio" rather than the rated wattage. Second, tube watts are not louder than solid state watts. Tube amps generally have a wider dynamic range than transistors which makes them louder, but a watt is a watt. Finally, yes the 75 watts of a light bulb or 1200 of a hair dryer are the same watt as an amp.

http://www.mesaboogie.com/Reviews/PMF-Rverb50/PMF-RectOVerb50.htm

 

[musicbox]

Buddy, we're not talking about pre-amps here. We're talking about power-amps. The output section of an SS amplifier is in no way designed to clip. At all. Yes, SS preamps clip to get that wonderfull buzz you might call harmonic distortion, but an SS poweramp is specifically designed NOT TO CLIP. And sorry, but YES. IF you have the ears to crank your triple rectifier, the output the speakers recieve is ALOT more than 150 watts. I'm not discusing relative volume here. I don't have the math to prove this, but their are people here who do. Your taking that statement from mesa completely out of context.

 

[screamingdaisy]

Really? Hm, could have sworn that ss amps use ss diodes that clip in order to get distortion. :roll: What you're saying is that tube amps clip more at higher volumes equaling more distortion, while ss amps clip at lower levels. Regardless of how the signal is clipped, if an amp is rated at x watts, it will put out x watts. If you have a triple recto rated at 150 watts and crank it all the way, you think you're going to get more watts out of it than it's rated at? Sorry, but no.

Sorry, but yes. 100w tube amps have been known to output as much as 180w over short transients. The 100w rating is a conservative rating as to how much power it will output before it clips, and since many of us choose to push our tube amps past that threshold, we're outputting over 100w.

Solid state amps are generally designed to not clip (we're talking power sections here). The reason people buy 300w solid state amps is so that they can compete volume wise with 100w tube amps. It's not that you actually need 300w to compete, but that you need to be able to push over 100w without any clipping.

So, back to your original point,

So, let me get this straight: what you're basically saying is that tube amps aren't rated at peak output, but solid state amps are.

Niether is actually rated for their peak output, but rather their peak output before a given amount of total harmonic distortion is reached. The more THD the manufacturer lists in the rating the more they're trying to "boost" their specs in order to sell to the "more wattage = better" crowd.



Anyway, to sum up.....the reason a 20w tube amp seems louder than a 20w ss amp is because you can drive a 20w tube amp for every last ounce it can put out.....so a full 20w+, simply because it'll compress and sound good when it's driven that hard.

Conversely, you wouldn't want to drive a 20w ss amp for a full 20w as you'd spend most of the time clipping the hell out of your power section....which may have sounded good on a tube amp, but will sound like **** on a solid state. Realistically, you'd probably be lucky if you were actually getting more than a couple of watts out of it most of the time since you'd need to set it low enough that your bass end wouldn't clip the power section when you pound on the low E.

 

[musicbox]

THUS, why marshall had to resort to a 350 watt poweramp in their "mode four" to compete with the triple recto. If you ever have an opportunity to crank the sucker on clean, it won't distort. Not even dimed.