What amp wattage is enough?

[slash-ed]

I vote fairy avatar for thehenderson

[thehenderson]

Bully.

[slash-ed]

You changed it voluntarily, didn't you

[thehenderson]

Self wedgie

[Kev77]

8 watts is sweet, 16 watts is twice as much

nice new avatar hendo - story?

[thehenderson]

Thought I better update the picture of myself, the last few years have been cruel to me

[Timi]

Hey im looking at purchasing a new amp. At the moment im looking at an svt-3pro 450W solidstate.
http://www.ampeg.com/products/pro/svt3pro/index.html

My only concern is that it won't be loud enough to keep up with the rest of the band. Im after something i don't have to crank right up and thus losing the clean sound.
Has anyone got or had any experience with this amp?
Any other amps you think will be more suitable?
What sort of wattage should i be looking at?

Nothing against solid state amps, but I don't understand why you would want a solid state Ampeg, kinda like wanting a Marshall and getting a Valvestate, or wanting a Porsche and getting a Boxter. You also say you want something that sounds really clean, are you sure you want an Ampeg?

For starters, what cab are you going to use? You could get a reeeeeally powerful head and use it into a crappy inefficient cab and it won't be that loud. Pretty tempted to say that the cab is more important than the head, in terms of volume and tone.

Power ratings are interesting, since they mean almost nothing. As an example, I have owned two GK heads over the years, a modern one which was 400watts at 4 ohms, and an older one that was 300 at 4 ohms. The 300 watt head was way louder. The SVT3 Pro is known to be underpowered for its rating. Although they are tonally different, people often compare the GK heads to hybrid Ampeg heads, and the less powerful GKs go louder. If you really like the SVT3 for its sound maybe look at the bigger SVT4, even though that might be overkill.

How much power you need depends on what you want to do. If you are a heavy band with a loud drummer and guitarists with too much low end (ie 99% of quadbox owners) you will need more than in a quieter band.

Provided you have a good cab/s and are looking at heads which aren't underpowered for their rating, I would say 300 watts at 4 ohms, but maybe 500 watts if you can to be safe. An old GK 800RB is 300 watts at 4 ohms, but DAMN they are loud, even into a good 8 ohm 4x10 (running about 200 watts) it's still real loud. Wish I never sold mine.

In tube land at least 100 watts, but 200 is better if you want to be loud and clean. I recommend a visit to tube land, you may not return, but since you say you want clean it might not be your buzz.

I assume you will be doing bar shows and not huge outdoor stages, so anyone who thinks you need 1000 watts has no idea what they talking about, or they are using heads are really underpowered for their rating.

[nzsimon1]

I have one word to say MARKBASS now with no retailers markup so never been cheaper voted as the best bass amp in the world by the yanks and for Americans to vote anything not made in America is unheard of

turned out to be more than one go figure

[thehenderson]

It's true that you can play a mean slap solo on a mark bass

[DoubleJ]

Power ratings are interesting, since they mean almost nothing. As an example, I have owned two GK heads over the years, a modern one which was 400watts at 4 ohms, and an older one that was 300 at 4 ohms. The 300 watt head was way louder. The SVT3 Pro is known to be underpowered for its rating. Although they are tonally different, people often compare the GK heads to hybrid Ampeg heads, and the less powerful GKs go louder. If you really like the SVT3 for its sound maybe look at the bigger SVT4, even though that might be overkill.

Yeah from looking at reviews alot of people said that its wattage was overrated. At the moment ive got a 500W solidstate warwick which im very keen to replace, but as a guide i dont want to go any quieter. I have a 600W 4X10 cab.

How does it work? If you have a 400W amp and a 500W cab can you just add another 500W cab and it will go louder?
And does your cab always have to be a higher wattage than your amp?
Its proberly bit of a newb question but all this amp stuff is new to me. I Just like playing.

[ash]

The relationship between loudness and amp power is quite complicated, but one of the things that help convert power into loudness is "cone area". In other words, the more speaker cones you have, the louder that 400W will be.


Read that again, let it sink in


BUT - your combined speaker power handling should be more than you amp's output. So 400W into one 500W cab is fine. So is 400W into two 250W cabs. Or two 500W cabs.

(All else being equal, two 500W cabs won't be any louder than two 200W cabs as long as it is still the same 400W going into them)


Read that again, let it sink in


And the other big thing is speaker impedance (Ohms). With a solid state amp like that Ampeg and your Warwick, that maximum power will be supplied at 4 Ohms. So you can plug one 4 Ohm, 500W cab into it. Or you can plug two 8Ohm, 200W+ cabs and still get the same maximum power. If you plug only one 8 Ohm cab in, you'll only get about 2/3 of the power out, no matter what the cab is rated at.


Read that again, let it sink in

So, three things to worry about other than Amp power:
Cone area
Power handling
Speaker impedance

[DoubleJ]

Cheers, very helpfull.

[Rog]

The new breed of small physically amps and speakers have altered the way I see the bass world of amplification. Markbass and Genz-Benz spring to mind as examples. Both have managed to pack a lot of punch into something which sure doesn't look like it can deliver.

[HANGMAN]

ive owned a few different bass amps over the years and in my experience, the wattage means next to nothing!
My first amp was a Trace Elliot 250watt 2x10 combo and it was sweet.
My next amp was a Hartke 140watt head and that was sweet too.
Then I got an SWR 500watt amp and it was puss!
Now Im rocking a beat up old Peavey Mark 2 140watt head and its sweet as!

So yeah, lesson learned was 'rock what ya got' and make it work haha!

Getting the tone right too will help it cut through and depend less on sheer power/ volume. I play a Jazz which has a lot of natural 'cut'

[Timi]

Modern solid state bass amps are a bit weird to me, at least the ones I've tried. They just sound so weak compared to older solid state amps, which usually seem louder and fuller at lower power ratings. Old Acoustic, Peavey and GK heads just seem to crank despite having low power outputs by todays standards.

As Ash said, most heads state their power at 4 ohms and give around 2/3 of the power at 8 ohms. Is your cab the Warwick 4x10? If so they are good efficient cabs, and 8 ohms I believe. This means that the SVT3 will be putting out 300 watts with this cab, but since that's a "quiet" 300 watts it might not be enough.

No problem running 300 watts into a 600 watt cab provided you are feeding clean power to the cab. If your amp is underpowered for your needs you will be pushing the poweramp into clipping which will blow the speakers, even if they are rated much higher than the output of the head.