Got Head?........Room

[Kloppsta]

But what about this - "why is that major, minor & botique amp builders feel the need to offer power ratings of anything and everything up to 200W??? It seems the most common now days for a tube head is 100 - 120W. Why?? If it really isn't needed?"

[philipnz]

It seems to me that most boutique stuff these days is under 50 watts. Its only the major companies pitching stacks to the masses

[philipnz]

However thats probably because the guys that can afford the boutique stuff all have hip replacements and the young guys have heaps of mates to carry their gear in exchange for a sniff of the cork or pussy

[TMG 03]

yep, my amp has never been past 5, no need with a Bass - it looks like a POS but it has tons of good clean sound


If I turned it up to 6 it would blow that pussy twin away

Not any louder just more flabby if you cranked it.

[DC4]

There still seems to be the same old misunderstanding that gain and power mean the same. You could have an amp running at, say, "3", and another one at, say "7", the actual volume out being the same. This is a factor of gain, and how sensitive the amplifier is to an input signal, it is not power.
Power is the actual voltage being fed into the speakers (which for the the measurement of RMS power) are treated as a resistive load, so power is in effect the ability of the amplifier to generate power, as measured in Watts. Ohms law: Watts = Volts (sine wave) squared divided by the resistance (speaker load, eg 4 ohms, 8 ohms etc).
So my puny little Custom Vibrolux Reverb can still kick, uh, rear ends, at 40 Watts. Which even that amount it struggles it to get to when I measure it.

[Rog]

DC4 I hear what you are saying, but you must understand that without a wattmeter on the amp, the volume control is the only indication we can use for such a discussion.

With Ohm's law for outputs of amplifiers, we are dealing with Z rather than R, and X and consequently Z will vary considerably with f, so there is no way anyone can say what power out is at any point in time, or even averaged across a song.

That is why the volume knob becomes the norm for this.

[Bg]

That is why the volume knob becomes the norm for this.

And we all know that 11 is louder than 10... right guys?

[DC4]

Rog, my point entirely. So, we are talking about is gain, and not power then.
Hehheh, not that I'm TRYING to be pedantic...
Anyway, being pedantic, just for fun, Z is impedance, measured in ohms and yes it is f (frequency) dependant, and yes, speakers impedance varies with the frequency. Of course they do have a DC reistance, but is generally about 25% less than the stated impedance. I think they are measured at 400 Hz, for a spec value. (Unless it is a tweeter)
Amplifiers can be measured much more exactly at whatever frequency you want, for specs, and their impedance doesn't vary with frequency.
But what the stuff "X" is? Well, except an unknown quantity...
Anyway. Enough already.

[Rog]

X is total reactance, being inductive and capacitance reactance combined. Although the capacitive reactance is less signficant than the inductive reactance in speakers, I thought I'd just account for it by considering only total reactance, X.

> Rog, my point entirely. So, we are talking about is gain, and not power then.

Yes, we are, but attempting to quantify gain for this application is less easy that 'pretending' it is power, don't you think?

[DC4]

Bugga. OK, now I know what "X" is.

Some one once told me they were an "expert".
Wanting a definition of "expert" I researched this extensively and found...
So, "X" was an unknown quantity, and "spert" is a drip under pressure.
So I thought. Now I've got to re-work that...
Bugga.

[DC4]

And yes, who really cares whether it's gain or watts what.
It's all about how loud you wanna be.
Clean or distorted.
How quick you get tinnitus.
It's all in the ear of the listener.
BTW, I HATE that ringing in my ears.

[Rog]

The bells....

[ash]

Dung...














Flap, flap, flap...

[DC4]

Tubular bells?

[ash]

"Its a bat!"