350 Watts into 8x10?

I'm going to have to invent a "vaccine" for the "underpowering cabinet" myth. See Spacegoat's and my comments in another thread today.
- Mike

 

The Ampeg Tube SVT is 300 watts and their always on Ampeg 8x10's.

 

350 into an 8x10 is fine as long as you don't drive the amp really hard and clip the speakers.. Look at all the old svt's pushing em nowadays

 

How would you know if an older amp is clipping?

 

You can't really "underpower" a cabinet... and since 8x10's usually handle over 1000 watts, I doubt it would be a problem if a 350 watt amp clips a little. It should be plenty loud for medium size gigs, about as loud as 700 watts through a 4x10 (if all other things are equal.)

Rexspangle-- you get a distorted sound.

 

I hate to have to correct you primusdude, but i theres one hting i learned on tb, its that double watts doesnt mean double volume. A 4x10 w/ 700 watts, isnt going to be nearly as loud as an 8x10 w/ 350 watts, due to the fact that speaker area is the biggest factor in making yourself louder. but an 8x10 w/ 350 watts should be very loud (what kind of amp by the way?). Also, i used to run a 6x10 with i believe a hair under 200 watts, and that was very loud. (Although i started clipping which is why im looking for a new setup) Adding 2 more 10 inch spekaer cones and another 150 watts, and I would have been causing small earth quakes in my drummers basement.

 

I understand that double watts does not equal double volume, but neither does doubling the speakers as far as I know. I thought doubling the speakers accounted for a 3 dB increase, which is the same increase you get in doubling the wattage. I could be wrong.

 

the "underpowering speaker" thing i think comes from not running enough wattage to get the loudness you need and clipping your poweramp, therefore taking out your speaker.



jason

 

What would happen? I'll tell ya;

Youd get sound, and a whole lot of it. You'd probably have a great range of available tones - from really punchy to deep and sharp. And you probably keep up volume wise in ~90% of bands. That's a pretty decent rig. GO for it.

 

The original SVT rig was an SVT powering 2 810 cabinets! They had to split the power up into two cabinets because one of them couldn't take the power. Speaker technology has come a long way since then.... Can you imagine the punch of an SVT coupled to 16 tens in sealed cabs? YOWZA! I run my 76 SVT into one 410 and it's loud as hell!

350 into an 810 will work just fine

 

I see where primusdude is going with this. If one *assumes* that an 8x10 has 3 dB higher sensitivity than a given 4x10 (BTW - not always true; it depends on many factors), then he's right: one would have to push twice the wattage into the 4x10 to equal the loudness of the 8x10.

Remember, though, not all 8x10s are 3 dB more "sensitive" than all 4x10s. For example, compare the Ampeg PR810H or SVT810E (both rated at 100 dB SPL sensitivity) to the Eden D-410XLT (rated at 106 dB). If these figures were generated in the same way, then you can see where the argument can fall apart. But even these numbers can be misleading because they say nothing about the directivity pattern of the respective cabinets.

The main point is: if you have cabinet A with half the sensitivity of cabinet B, you can put twice the power into cabinet A and be as loud - IF the cabinet can handle the power.

- Mike

 

Unless you are consistently turning the volume and gain knobs up all the way, you won't notice a huge difference between 350W into an 8x10 and 1000W into an 8x10.

Plenty of touring artists have used 350W or less into an 8x10, not even counting anyone before the 90s.

You also have to take into account that every head sounds different.

 

Ok, but what if it was 350 watts thru a 4x10 and a 1x15? stil las loud as a 8x10? what would be louder? 350 thru two 4x10's, or 350 watts thru a 4x10 and a 1x15?

 

Ouch! That rig would punch you in the face and kick you while you're down!

Actually, many punk bands of today use that type of rig. SVT-CL (not the 70's version) with multiple SVT 8x10's and SVT 2x15's. That plus a Sting Ray... *drools* oo yeah...