Still Confused About Big Amps

[Mickguard]

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[ToneMonkey]

My giging guitarist mate came round to give my amp a damn good going over a while back. I've got a Vox AD30VT (30 watt obviously).

He said that it was a bloody big 30 watt and that he'd have no trouble taking it giging and that it was a damn fine amp. It also has a knob on the back to lower the power as low as 0.5 watt.

I'm definately not an experienced guitarist or amp man, but I think that this amp is the absolute mutts nuts. Definately worth a try in my opinion, Best £135 I ever spent.

[erikbojerik]

If you check out old photos of Zeppelin, you might notice that with all of Jimmy's stackitude, he's only got one of those speaker cones with a mic in front. Probably the only one that's actually hooked up.

[Mickguard]

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[ToneMonkey]

It's got a valve in it

To my untrained ears, I can't really hear the difference. Not that it makes a difference as it's my playing that's the problem. I found it really handy as wasn't too sure what my sound is. Now I know that it's classic fender or vox amps.

There are a few amps about that you can lower the wattage on (don't know why I'm telling you this, I'm sure you know). There's a Lonestar one, but I can't remember who makes it.

[Robert_the_damned]

I used to find my 30 watt solid state wasn't even gutsy enough to play along with drums (though it was a POS and you couldn't actually turn it up past about 7 without loosing all quality of sound). I'm now using a 120 watt solid state and I've normally got that set really really low.

my guess would be either these guys are running solid state amps or they arn't hooking up half their gear (ie having a head and two cabs and only having one cab plugged in). some people just have to have a big amp to show off you know.

[Mattia]

Trust me, there's a big difference between good modelling (say, Line 6) and a real Tube amp. I've got a Rivera TBR 60 (stereo 60 watts) that can go bloody loud, but with the combo of a gain+master volume (per channel, natch), it's much, much, much easier to control than my 94 watt solid-state Fender was, with its single main volume control and 'gain' control for the clean channel. I can actually play it and get nice tones out of it at bedroom levels, albeit loudish ones, playing through a 1x12". If I wanted to fill a room, I could hook up 4 cabs, I guess (stereo, y'see; 2x 60watts, two speaker outputs per side), but that's just sillyness. In part, controllable tone at lower volumes is not just wattage, but amp circuit design.

Alternately, you also have those hotplate gain reducing box thingys.

However, despite doubting I'll ever need another amp again, because this one sounds fabulous in all sorts of ways, although it's very picky about setup (twiddling one knob affects the other ones), I'm still thinking I may one day build myself a small 3-5watt amplifier. Just because.

[Prostheta]

I've always found that the more distortion you introduce into a signal (which compresses the dynamic range also) the less you'll be heard. Makes me laugh when wannabe metallers turn the pre-amp gain up to 10. Less distortion and more dynamic compression from the speakers (hence big amps to drive the speakers) or the power amp section and the more you're heard. A 15w amp will plough through more as the power section will add plenty of compression.

Did I mention solid state? Perhaps because they just add bad odd-order distortion harmonic which buries the sound deeper in the mix instead of naturally compressing and adding "musical" even order overtones to strengthen it :-D

Did I mention that Watts aren't linear, and even then the apparent loudness changes by frequency? My 300w bass amp levels with my 5150. I always pulled two tubes out of my JCM800 2203s to reduce them to 50w from 100w. Nicer breakup and better apparent volume.

Turn it up to 11? Only if you're playing with yourself in the bedroom

Edited February 9, 2007 by Prostheta

[Daniel Sorbera]

Do you remember this article? You need a ten fold increase in poweramp wattage to double the perceived volume.

That means a 50 watt amp pushing your speaker, would only be slightly louder than your 15 watt. The real kicker here that no one ever seems to look at is the impedance of the speakers, the number of the speakers, and most importantly the sensitivity of the speaker. Basically what this means is your amp pushing a 12" speaker rated at 93db sensitivity will be 10db quiter than a 12" speaker rated at 103db sensitivity. Now imagine how significant that change really is. Going from 100db to 110db is a big thing. Same with 110db to 120db. The speaker your running makes a *big* impact on how loud your amp is.

Bottom line is this. If you really like the tone of your amp but need a bigger/fuller sound you need more speakers. If you want it to be louder you need speaker(s) with higher sensitivity rating. The highest I've found is the celestion century with a rating of 103db.

If your looking for that big room filling sound from a low power amp without everything turning to mud I'd suggest a 2x10" setup with very efficient speakers. Remember you need less bass and more mids when playing with a band for your sound to stand out and not be mud.

Edited February 9, 2007 by Godin SD

[Mickguard]

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[Daniel Sorbera]

I'm definitely committed to tubes...I just don't like the way solid state sounds with a full band. They're fine for home practice, and maybe okay for metalheads or jazz guitarists. But it's not going to do that overdriven Black Keys type thing for me.

Still, I keep wondering if there's just something I'm not understanding. Maybe your supposed to place pedals in front of your amp and control your overdrive that way? Then at least you get to look cool posing in front of that 4x12 stack.

But still it's that powertube breakup I'm after. You know, that rich, chimey breakup you get just before things start to distort. Problem is, even with my 15 watt Laney (I had a 15w Ampeg before this one) I can't get to the sweet spot until I'm at about 12 o'clock. At which point the band's been yelling at me for half an hour already.

Okay, they're wusses. And they haven't been fitted with earplugs (I have). But still. With the Laney, I'm forced to play on the preamp mostly, and it's just not quite the same sound.

And to think that Johnny Winter used to play with, what, three Fender Twins? Crazy.

Putting pedals in front is not going to get you the sound your after if you want that power tube breakup. I have an ax84 P1 with a single 6v6 running about 3 watts and with the poweramp gain maxed out and the preamp gain almost full it gets around 112db which is nice and quiet. I'm running a very inefficient 8" speaker with a rating of about 87db. But it still sounds amazing.

[marksound]

Here's an idea that may be completely wrong.

Replace the tubes in both amps with "softer" ones. That Fender HR comes with medium hardness "white" GT6L6s (Fender also sells color coded EL84s). Change to a lower hardness set you'll get into breakup sooner.

We used to mike everything no matter where we played. No more. It's a PITA and just not necessary in most places. BTW, Robben Ford played through 2 Supers (1 black/1 silver) the other night and it was way not too loud in the small club.

[Mickguard]

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[westhemann]

the original question"why a big amp"

i can tell you why...the more speakers you are pushing to the limit,the better the sound for me

i don't care if you take a 15 watt amp and push one speaker until it blends with the drums,it still won't sound as good to me as a stack of 4 by 12s at the same "volume"...it's about how much air you push...it's a fuller sound.

8 12" speakers will always push a higher volume of air than one of them...whether you can hear a small amp over the drums is irrelevant...i can promise you somewhere in the room you can't hear that amp properly.if you mic that speaker and put it through the monitors,then you are no longer running 15 watts,you are running through the wattage of the house sound system....

but i just don't like high gain amps at less than 100 watts...they don't have the headroom i want.i push alot of air with my system...but my 100 watt engl(newest amp) is still louder than my 350 watt mode 4 in practical use...but that's because the mode 4 in amp gain sucks,so i use a pedal and keep the amp gain very low...

the engl has good gain,so no pedal and i can use all of the preamp volume

but one other note...i hate power tube breakup...i run my amps right up to that point,but never past.

[El Dangerouso]

I would suggest a Bogner Metropolis. 30 watt, built in reverb, and a 1x12 combo. The Schizo control will allow you to go from perfectly clean to pretty mean with multiple settings in between. Fairly expensive though.

[biliousfrog]

I wonder whether some combos have the wrong pots on the controls (bear with me) so that all the volume is bunched up at the beginning. I notice on my combo that the volume goes from nothing to "ouch!" before I even reach 1. On most heads it seems much more gradual with 5 actually sounding like half the volume of 10 & twice as loud as 1.

I've got a Laney LC30 & it's fantastic...so if you like the VC15 it might be worth a look. It's the older MK1 BTW, the MK2 is not supposed to be quite as good & looks a bit naff to me. It's also bloody loud, never got it past 2...actually got it on 3 once & it was too painful to listen too, it was making me whince.

When I was in my last "proper" band, writing, recording & gigging regularly I had either a flightcased 2x12" or 4x12" cab, a rack of gear & a few different power amps from 150-300w/solid & tube....the singer was using a Marshall JCM800 through a marshall cab. I can honestly say that the Laney combo is waaaaaay louder than any of those rigs.

[jnewman]

I have two 60 watt EL34 amps at home. One is a 1x12" and the other is a 2x10". Both are combos. They both get ear-bleeding loud pretty easily, as in, hard to be in the same room with.

I'm about to start building a Fender 5E3 tweed Deluxe clone and a modified Marshall 18 Watt clone. Both are 15-20 watts. I don't think I'll have any problems getting plenty loud enough. I'm rebuilding the 2x10" as a head and cab, and will be able to add the 2x10" cab to either small amp if I really need extra volume. I can't imagine that I will, though. If I could find a 5 watt amp with a tone I really liked and enough versatility, I'd be there in an instant .

Edited February 9, 2007 by jnewman

[Mickguard]

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[Prostheta]

Primarily, I'm a bassist. I want punch and growl. Valve works well.

Try pulling the two inner/outer pubes of a 4 valve power-amp stage and see how it works for you. As long as the inner/outer are the parallel sides of course.

</red wine>

[Mickguard]

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[Jalien21]

dude. huge speaker cabinets are all about the stage presence. you can't rock out in front of a 15 watt amp, no matter how loud it is or good it sounds.

[mikhailgtrski]

Well, a cranked up 15 watt tube amp can rattle the windows too.

As I see it, your options are:

1. A really low wattage EL84 Class A tube amp - 3 watts or so. Still loud, and they don't have the punch or headroom of a bigger amp, but you can crank them.

2. An attenuator (Weber MASS, Ultimate Attenuator, Hotplate)... lots of "big amp guys" use them. Some of them (Hotplate) mess with your tone if you turn them down too far, but it's better IMO than not being able to get your power tube distortion. And at some point the speakers don't get enough power to keep them happy, but that issue applies to any lower-volume solution.

3. An amp with a master volume, but then, again, you're not getting the most out of the power tubes.

4. An isolation speaker cab - might not be practical for your situation, but it will let you play the amp LOUD.

5. A dummy load/power amplifier "re-amp" setup.

I use scenario #5 with my Hiwatt 100 and it sounds great. Very little difference between the re-amp and going straight in to the cab. But you do have extra gear to lug around.

For your situation, I would recommend trying the Weber MASS. I've heard very good things about them - they don't trash your tone as much. The Ultimate Attenuator might be better, but it's really a dummy load/re-amplifier in a box (and much more expensive).

My $0.03

Mike

[Mickguard]

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[Daniel Sorbera]

Well, a cranked up 15 watt tube amp can rattle the windows too.

Now, he's talking about the codpiece factor....where if you don't have a couple of full stacks behind you, you're obviously not 'equipped'....

Yeah but thats really shallow and only really applies when your playing metal/harder rock.

[Mickguard]

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