A truthful answer about 100 watt heads

  • Thread starter Thread starter BDuncan
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BDuncan

BDuncan

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I'm looking for an honest answer. How often have you had to crank a 100 watt head or combo?
 
PLX said:
What do you mean by "had to" ?

I run my JCM800 with the master vol on 8 all the time

?‍♂️
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I'm curious because I've never owned one. The most powerful amp I've had was an 80 watt combo and I only had to crank it once because the bass player had a full stack. When jamming with a drummer, I've used 16 watt tube heads that were loud enough. 100 watts seems like overkill if you're playing small rooms indoors.
 
Your Drummer uses Chop Sticks, and hit like a Faggot..
Wait, I mean she must really have a light touch.
Because you need watts to hang with a real hard hitting Rock Drummer that sound good with mics on the kit..
 
It depends on what you are playing, I see funk and jam bands all the time where a 15w combo is enough, for thrash metal though with any kind of hard hitting drummer I want at least 100w, I need enough balls where I’m not needing to boost my mids into a boxy headache and cut the bass and sound like shit just to be heard
 
Jesus Chris, this discussion again….:doh:
3A737E19-DD52-42AC-B4A4-8D60C01100DF.jpeg
 
midnightlaundry said:
Your Drummer uses Chop Sticks, and hit like a Faggot..
Wait, I mean she must really have a light touch.
Because you need watts to hang with a real hard hitting Rock Drummer that sound good with mics on the kit..
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Truth,
Tell that drummer I said to “Settle down, relax”.
Who doesn’t want to be
Animal from The Muppetts behind a drumset?
The drummer needs to make your amplifier work whatever the wattage, along with everything else dynamically.
If you see Jason Voorhees day in & day out,
-he becomes a normal dude.
In other words-save the scary monsters for
the right moment.
Example: Pantera “A New Level”
The monstrous mutes riff, Diamond Darrell &
Big Vinnie use it sparingly. otherwise they’d just be mutes & chugs.
 
BDuncan said:
I'm looking for an honest answer. How often have you had to crank a 100 watt head or combo?
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If you play metal, you dont crank them. But you can get louder bedore too much power tube saturation. Headroom. You can get louder "clean" gain than 50. Also punches you in the chest harder. So to answer your question. I always put that bitch as loud as i can before that saturation. It is pretty much full volume there, just gets more saturation and sag the more you go from there
 
BDuncan said:
I'm curious because I've never owned one. The most powerful amp I've had was an 80 watt combo and I only had to crank it once because the bass player had a full stack. When jamming with a drummer, I've used 16 watt tube heads that were loud enough. 100 watts seems like overkill if you're playing small rooms indoors.
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I don't see a 16~18w amp keeping up with a live drummer.

ymmv
 
Its not necessarily about the amp being 100 watts, its about having that power to create the massive headroom. That said, in my younger years I'd crank the shit out of my 100 watt non-master volume Marshall's. I had my 50 watt JCM800 on 7 when I was playing with a band. We played loud.
 
100w amps feel and respond differently than 50 or lower wattage amps at the same volume. More girth, low end etc..these are some of the reasons why guys use 100w amps even in quiet club settings.
Only times I've purposely left a 50w amp at home for volume reasons have been outdoor shows.
 
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