Why weak wattage?

[Downunderwonder]

8 hours ago, la bam said:

That's too loud / needless for home and just not practical for gigging and to be honest not much different in price. 

Horses for courses and you don’t send your highly trained trotter to the galllops.

 

Most of the gigs I have done in the last 10 years have been done with 200w'ers.

[Downunderwonder]

4 hours ago, TimR said:

I blame the "keeping up with the drummer" mindset. Even I have fallen into that trap in my post.

 

The drummer should be playing at the appropriate volume. Too many non-musical drummers playing at one volume. But that's another thread. 

A drummer that is a little OTT wouldn't be too much of a problem. When Sir Guitard has to OTT the drummer instead of telling drummer too cool his jets you got problems.

[Downunderwonder]

1 hour ago, la bam said:

It's no problem at all

 

Its not a dig at anything, just a genuine question.... Just light hearted. If it works for you, then great. 

 

Why build a weaker powered version of something that works well, and produce something that may not (in certain circumstances)? 

 

Why build a practice amp that is too loud for a house, (I'm all for more power and a volume knob) but not suitable for the majority of gigs? 

 

Its properly also to do with the YouTube over enthusiastic rave about anything presenters as well who help shift these to people as amazingly loud gigging amps, who then find out that they need something else.. 

Why? Because people that don't need to blow the doors off the joint buy them to use on gigs.

[Dan Dare]

2 hours ago, LawrenceH said:

I wish I could find a good lightweight 8" driver (or even 6") optimised for high power handling, low resonant frequency, medium Q and low sensitivity.

 

Have a look at Volt drivers. Nice, but not cheap, though.

[Norris]

1 hour ago, Downunderwonder said:

Most of the gigs I have done in the last 10 years have been done with 200w'ers.

Most of mine have been done with 500W but with the master volume turned down to 4 🤪

[TimR]

Sensitivity.

 

My 500W amp spends much of its time set at 3. If I adjust it to 2.5 its far too quiet, 3.5 too loud. 

 

I guess a 200W amp might give more range. 

[Wolverinebass]

I remember trying an Elf into a Vanderkley 2x10 at a SE Bash a few years ago. It was total and utter crap. To get any form of volume out of it you'd either be red lining it the whole time or using it with an 8x10 which defeats the entire point of such a small amp.

 

Fair enough, coffee shop gig. For anything loud, it wouldn't work at all. Zero headroom. 

[knirirr]

200W is plenty for me (with a 1x12 cab), but I'm playing jazz and if guitarists are present they're going to be playing clean and at a sensible volume. 

[LawrenceH]

I like reading people's different subjective preferences, makes me question/analyse my own.

 

I don't think it's just a matter of volume per se, rather the EQ balance you want and where there is space in the mix for the bass. 100w is ample in some cases and woefully inadequate in others.

 

Bear in mind that speaker/cab design philosophy changes a lot depending on how much power you have available. The right 15" driver and cab will let you gig a 50w head, but to scale that up even a bit requires a lot of boot space.

[gjones]

I did buy a 100 watt Fender Rumble when I joined a country band. It was definitely loud enough for the quieter type gigs I did with them. I also used it with a blues band, that I would occasionally gig with. Both of those bands had sensible drummers. It was extremely light and easy to cart around and had more than enough output for that type of music.

 

I've got 500 watt heads and a cupboard full of cabs for the bigger gigs, with shed builder drummers and power mad guitarists.

Edited 1 hour ago by gjones