200w or 500w Bass Head for 400w Cab?

[uhuglue]

Hi Folks. I am looking for an amp to pair with my Orange Cab but am unsure whether to go for a 200w (4 ohm) or 500w (4 ohm).

 

I currently have an Orange OBC115 Cab which is rated at 400watts (8 Ohms). I will be using the cab and amp primarily for home recording and practice in my apartment. I'd be playing at "bedroom-level" during the day and will most likely use my headphones at night.

I would like to seek your opinion on whether the 200w is more than sufficient for my needs or would it make more sense to go for the 500w for more headroom and the odd chance that ai might to bring it out for a gig.

 

Thanks and looking forward to your opinions!

 

[lownote]

If your cab is 8 ohms, you will only be getting half the 200w and a bit: 120w-ish. The 500w head would give you 250w ish thru your cab.  That's one thing.  The other is that the difference between 200w and 500 is not actually twice the power + and huge in audible terms. The third thing is that the minute you decide you actually want to gig a bit, and especially outdoors, 500w will cope much more happily.  You may get by with 200w but you'll be ringing its neck trying to keep up with a band of any loudness.

 

As chris_b will say below, sound and tone are important too. IME heads vary very much.  It's vital you actually try a variety of heads with your cab, and with a range of EQ settings, to see what floats your boat.  "It'll do"  on the day of purchase may quickly become "I hate this thing" on extended aquaintaince. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by lownote

[chris_b]

IMO gigs and studio are totally different environments and require different solutions.

 

500 watts every time for gigs, but I wouldn't bother with an amp at all for studio work. I'd DI the bass. I'd still DI the bass through your studio if I was practicing at home.

 

If you really have to have an amp my list would include an Aguilar and Mesa Boogie. I'd probably get a Barefaced One10.

Edited October 18, 2022 by chris_b

[warwickhunt]

Firstly, neither amp will damage your cab (caveat - you aren't a fool with how you use it).  

 

All things being equal between the amps (valve/SS/EQ centres/'sound'), you need to ask what benefit could the 200w have over the 500w?  Likely answer is none.  However, the 500w gives you more headroom and future-proofs upgrades and changes in circumstance.  

 

One thing you didn't mention is price; watts are very cheap today, so I'm assuming they aren't that different in cost.

[uhuglue]

I am actually considering the Laney Digbeth DB500H and DB200H.

 

The DB500H would set me back about £380 and I saw a DB200H on sale for £249 (regular price is around £300).

[fretmeister]

500w

 

More headroom and it has a volume control.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

4 hours ago, uhuglue said:

Hi Folks. I am looking for an amp to pair with my Orange Cab but am unsure whether to go for a 200w (4 ohm) or 500w (4 ohm).

Anywhere between one half and twice the speaker rating is appropriate for the amp size. One half is usually enough to drive the speaker to its full mechanically limited output. More power gives more amp headroom, while too much power will cause distortion that will encourage a sensible person to turn it down. The mechanical limit of your Eminence Kappa 15 loaded Orange in the critical 50-80Hz range is 100 watts, so even a 200w amp has sufficient headroom.

[Sparky Mark]

On 18/10/2022 at 08:15, uhuglue said:

Hi Folks. I am looking for an amp to pair with my Orange Cab but am unsure whether to go for a 200w (4 ohm) or 500w (4 ohm).

 

I currently have an Orange OBC115 Cab which is rated at 400watts (8 Ohms). I will be using the cab and amp primarily for home recording and practice in my apartment. I'd be playing at "bedroom-level" during the day and will most likely use my headphones at night.

I would like to seek your opinion on whether the 200w is more than sufficient for my needs or would it make more sense to go for the 500w for more headroom and the odd chance that ai might to bring it out for a gig.

 

Thanks and looking forward to your opinions!

 

The 400 watts isn't an indication of the aural output of the cab, it's the speaker's maximum thermal disippation. So as Bill says above, once your amp is outputting around 100 watts to the cab, more watts will just generate more heat within the speaker's voice coil, not make it louder.

200 watts into two single 15 cabs is a very capable live rig. I.e., the Orange AD200B into two OBC115 cabs (and it's got nothing to do with valve watts).

I would go for a 500 watt amp if I intended to use one or two 410 cabs at high volume as that would deliver around 60 to 75 watts per driver, which feels about right. 

(I wonder if anyone has ever really driven 500 watts continuously into a Barefaced One10?)

[bassbloke]

A 250W amp pushed to its limits will do more damage to the speakers in a 400w cab than a 500w amp.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

1 hour ago, bassbloke said:

A 250W amp pushed to its limits will do more damage to the speakers in a 400w cab than a 500w amp.

I assume you say that because at its limits the amp is clipping. That can cause a problem for tweeters, because clipping creates abnormal high frequency content that can over-power a tweeter. But it has no effect on woofers.

[bassbloke]

Exactly that.

[Sparky Mark]

6 minutes ago, bassbloke said:

Exactly that.

Except the OBC115 doesn't have a tweeter 

[Harlequin74]

I have learnt alot from this thread, thank you! 
 

one question though, is the watt to output ratio linear? So, if i run my Orange Terror 500 at half volume , is it operating at 250 watts? ( running thru 2x obc112 400w cabs)

 

 

[itu]

1 hour ago, Harlequin74 said:

I have learnt alot from this thread, thank you! 
 

one question though, is the watt to output ratio linear? So, if i run my Orange Terror 500 at half volume , is it operating at 250 watts? ( running thru 2x obc112 400w cabs)

First question: how do you measure this half volume? From the pot position?

 

Amp manufacturer/designer can use parts that give you 90 % of the headroom, when the pot is pointing to 10 o'clock, or 3 o'clock, or whatever. The same applies to eq.

 

Another thing: The amount of power you address to the cab is also dependent on the data you are pushing from your bass. I expect that the peak and RMS content of your signal are very different. People hardly drive the amp with continuous sine.

[Downunderwonder]

3 hours ago, Harlequin74 said:

I have learnt alot from this thread, thank you! 
 

one question though, is the watt to output ratio linear? So, if i run my Orange Terror 500 at half volume , is it operating at 250 watts? ( running thru 2x obc112 400w cabs)

 

 

Power output is assuredly nonlinear to the dial positions. Partly for good reason, volume and power are decidedly nonlinear as well! And partly because all amp makers cheat a little or a lot in making the lower dial sweep add volume faster than the rest.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

7 hours ago, Harlequin74 said:

 if i run my Orange Terror 500 at half volume , is it operating at 250 watts? ( running thru 2x obc112 400w cabs)

 

 

No. First off the position of the volume control doesn't indicate the power output. Depending on the level of the input signal halfway on the volume control could be full power, could be 1/10 power, could be clipping. Then there's the matter of the impedance load, which isn't constant. A nominal 4 ohm load will have an actual impedance anywhere between 3 and 30 ohms, depending on frequency. Power varies with impedance, so with 20 volts output the power can range between 13 watts at 30 ohms to 133 watts at 3 ohms with the same volume control setting depending on the note being played. Lastly, perceived sound levels are logarithmic with respect to power, not linear. To sound twice as loud doesn't take twice the power, it takes ten times the power. As for measuring power output, to do so requires simultaneous measuring of voltage and current, which requires two separate meters and a method to extrapolate the result, which will still vary with frequency. Engineers don't even try. We measure voltage, which is constant into any impedance load. We know the voltage output that an amp can cleanly deliver, and the voltage limit that a speaker can cleanly handle. 

[40hz]

I'd always go higher power. It's not necessarily about volume, but about cleanliness at volume. Smaller powered amps will get you loud, but normally you'd work the gain control that bit harder, resulting a lot of harmonic content. You may think this is a good thing! For me, gigging, minimum 500w for a composed tone.

[BassmanPaul]

Not wanting to undermine Bill's post but I too would go with the higher powered amplifier. You don't know what equipment you may collect in the future. That said the player MUST use common sense and respect the limitations of that equipment.

Edited November 12, 2022 by BassmanPaul

[Harlequin74]

Thanks all, some fab people on this forum! Much appreciated.