dampening factor

[melkinsbass]

How important is the dampening factor when choosing a power amp to run a bass rig? I understand that it's important for running bass bins, but I'm not sure if that the bass is usually operating in that low of frequency (at least most of the time). Can someone shed some light on this for me? Thanks for your help.

PS forgive if I misspelled dampening.

[Rune Bivrin]

It's a hugely overrated measure. Any competently designed amplifier has a "damping factor" far greater than what's needed. The truth is that most of the time the actual damping is determined by the resistance of the voice coil of the driver.

As a corollary, for musical instruments damping factor isn't always desired. One of the things that set tube amps apart from transistor amps is that tube amps often have very low damping factor which lets the speaker show more of its "character". That's probably one of the reasons tube amps sometimes seem louder and offer a "richer" sound.

[melkinsbass]

Thanks for your input.

[Gearhead17]

Crown amps are generally touting about their damping numbers numbers and I truly have not heard the difference between them against a QSC or Mackie amp. Maybe I don't know what to listen for...