Bag End Question
 

Hey everyone - I am curious about how Bag End rates their bass cabs.

If you look at their spec sheets for any cab they note the 'continuous sine wave power handling' and then 'peak music power handling' - an example is their 2x12 cab and it says 400 watts and 800 watts respectively - what would be an ideal wattage input for that range?

Thanks for any help/input and sorry if this is a redundant question!

Ben

You want to go with the "continuous" rating, but Bag End cabs really will handle a ton of power...just don't be stupid.

Ok - so do you think an amp running at 500 watts for the above 400-800 watt rating would be too much?

It will be fine, generally. The wattage ratings on both amps and cabs are like vague serving suggestions, to give you a broad idea of what to expect. They are not literal figures that can be trusted. What this means is you start by finding ratings that are "close", but then you have to be cautious while playing loudly, and listen for speaker noises like farting, buzzing, etc. and turn down the amp a bit until the noises go away. Controlling your big signal peaks, either by finger technique or with a compressor, can help.