A truthful answer about 100 watt heads

  • Thread starter Thread starter BDuncan
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GJgo said:
180W or GTFO!! Superb tone and cut from the bedroom all the way to killing your drummer.

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I’ll see your 180w and raise you 100w with my Schroeder Dozer (280w with KT120’s in it, 200w with KT88’s). Plate voltage in the 700’s, but more of a clean amp. Don’t have any pics atm on my phone to show lol. My favorite amps I have still are all between 50-100 watts though
 
I've played in a several situations where it made sense to turn it up pretty loud, but never had the volume up to even half.

By amp standards, I suppose that isn't cranked, but by decibel standards it certainly is.
 
GJgo said:
180W or GTFO!! Superb tone and cut from the bedroom all the way to killing your drummer.

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braintheory said:
I’ll see your 180w and raise you 100w with my Schroeder Dozer (280w with KT120’s in it, 200w with KT88’s). Plate voltage in the 700’s, but more of a clean amp. Don’t have any pics atm on my phone to show lol. My favorite amps I have still are all between 50-100 watts though
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I'll step it up one more notch to a 300 watt monster; six 6550 power tubes. May mot be the best amp on the planet but still sounds pretty good. Clean headroom for days and can drown out the entire band cranked just above noon. Though with the heavy ass transformer you may need a forklift to move it. LOL!

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Pretty much agree with everything that's already been said. More watts isn't about volume, it's about clean headroom and feel. Nothing wrong with lower watt amps, but anything lower than 40-50 watts just doesn't have the same punch.
 
If your playing any kind of heavy music and the drummer gets it done. Preferably 100 watts.
Band I used to play in back in the 80’s was thrash metal. I had a Marshall JMP 100 master. Other guitar player had the same but a 50 watt.

You could hear both. But if it was a open rehearsal and the beer drinking started invariably things would get louder.
His 50 kinda pooped out around 6 on the volume where mine would get louder.

Kinda amazing thst I can still hear these days ?
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I'll step it up one more notch to a 300 watt monster; six 6550 power tubes. May mot be the best amp on the planet but still sounds pretty good. Clean headroom for days and can drown out the entire band cranked just above noon. Though with the heavy ass transformer you may need a forklift to move it. LOL!

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Now you're getting into bass territory. That's the power section of my SVTs!
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I'll step it up one more notch to a 300 watt monster; six 6550 power tubes. May mot be the best amp on the planet but still sounds pretty good. Clean headroom for days and can drown out the entire band cranked just above noon. Though with the heavy ass transformer you may need a forklift to move it. LOL!

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Beast.. I don't remember these..
 
BeZo said:
Now you're getting into bass territory. That's the power section of my SVTs!
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That's what I've read/been told about them. Ampeg and Crate being owned by the same parent company at that time and the power section was lifted straight from an SVT for the BV300. I actually have 2 of them. It never occurred to my dumb ass to try one through my bass cab. Ch 2 & 3 is probably too much distortion for bass. The clean channel or running a bass preamp through the power section might sound pretty good though.

midnightlaundry said:
Beast.. I don't remember these..
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The BV300 & 150 came out in the early to mid 2000's I think and not many were produced. Most people associate them with the crappy sounding BV120, but they're completely different. The preamps were redesigned, they used different power sections and sound much better. I'd say they're more akin to Ampeg than Crate. As stated above, Crate & Ampeg were owned by the same parent company at the time. Other than aesthetics the 300 & 150 don't have much in common with the 120. Not really sure why Crate didn't go with a different name. Though Crate made a lot of questionable decisions.

I'm not going to claim that they were god's gift to tone. Overall though, they're not too shabby and can hold their own well enough. I can get some pretty convincing high gain plexi type tones out of them.
 
I play my Friedman modded super lead every Sunday at church. It’s all about how the amp sounds with the band. If a low watt amp sounded good I would use it. Big amps produce big sound.??
 
It depends. I have a Wizard MTL2 that Witt volume on 2 sounds like jmp on like 8 . But my jmp does cranked the most that’s for sure
 
True story here,
last year 1 of the bands I'm in,country rock band,we recorded a single in a high end studio in pitts.I used a elmwood m90 cranked to the max and other guy used a slo cranked up very loud.Both mic'd into a 4x12 cab.We both then doubled our parts in real time.= 4 tracks now.
Producer looked at us,shook hid head,laughed and said we're done! We thought we did something wrong or bad takes,etc.The producer said,nope your tracks are golden.Bands come in here with thier little teeny amps or modlers,and it takes like 6-8 tracks to build up the thickness and fullness,and tone that only took you guys 2 double tracks to get,cause of such good amps and real cranked up 100 watt amps cooking tubes. Of course, us two already knew this going into it that day...and that there,is the truthful answer about 100 watt amps.
 
Little B said:
True story here,
last year 1 of the bands I'm in,country rock band,we recorded a single in a high end studio in pitts.I used a elmwood m90 cranked to the max and other guy used a slo cranked up very loud.Both mic'd into a 4x12 cab.We both then doubled our parts in real time.= 4 tracks now.
Producer looked at us,shook hid head,laughed and said we're done! We thought we did something wrong or bad takes,etc.The producer said,nope your tracks are golden.Bands come in here with thier little teeny amps or modlers,and it takes like 6-8 tracks to build up the thickness and fullness,and tone that only took you guys 2 double tracks to get,cause of such good amps and real cranked up 100 watt amps cooking tubes. Of course, us two already knew this going into it that day...and that there,is the truthful answer about 100 watt amps.
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He shook his head in disappointment because he was hoping to get paid for more studio time. ? ?
 
There’s something about the ass end of a 100 watt amp that you miss with even a 50 watter. I had 2 50 watt Marshall style circuits before I got my 2203, and my 2203 blew them away so much that I’ll never have a 50 watt Marshall again.
 
It comes down to clean headroom and bottom end push. A 100-watt amp has more clean headroom and better bottom end push. Lowe frequencies take more power to accurately recreate. Yes, there are a lot of situations where a 40-watt amp is plenty loud. Right up to the point where you're playing an outdoor show with poor PA support. Also as stated earlier, modern high gain heads rely on preamp distortion for their gain. This means that you have to have enough clean headroom to amplify that tone.

Also, some of us grew up playing 100-watt heads. That is what we know and what we like. If 40-watts works for you... awesome! Stop trying to get everyone else to use what you are using. I don't need the four-wheel drive in my truck all the time. However, it's nice to have when I need it.
 
I have a few low what (18 or less) Fender tube amps. For everything else, I like at least a 50w. My main amp now is my Engl E651 Artist Edition 100W into a pair of Engl PRO E212VHB cabs loaded with V30s. I have to play it louder than I'd like, but that's life. Before that it was my dual 100W Engl E850/100 which is excessive for my needs, but I do enjoy it.


I have a new Marshall JVM410H out for delivery today, it's gonna get loud here I think.
 
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