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Does anybody really need more than 500 watts?

#101
It all depends on (1) how efficient your cabinets are and (2) how much clean, low-bass you're expecting to produce.

My home rig is a 400 watt head into a single 4ohm Acme Low B1 cab. It's loud enough for home/studio use, but barely enough output for a small club gig.

The same head into a pair of 8ohm 4x10" cabs would be more volume than I could use on the biggest stage.
 
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#106
I play in a 4 piece with a heavy-handed drummer. At practice, I had to really push my Carvin BX700 to keep up. Keep in mind, manufacturers wattage claims can be taken with a grain of salt.
Same band, same practice space, and my Crest 3.0 amp and Sansanp RBI elicits dirty looks from my band mates at 1/3 volume, going through one side of the amp.
 
#107
I play 5 string basses and prefer clean, full and well defined notes. . . . . and sometimes I play very loud.

IMO watts are the cheapest part of an amp, so think of how many you'll need, then double it. I have a 500 and 2 800 watt amps. They all get used for different gigs and bands. When I play loud I want to maintain my sound and my 800 watt amps will do that.

They also sound great at low volume, so as long as the amps sound good the ratings are just numbers.
 
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#108
I don’t have an answer for you or at least the answer you’re looking for. I’ve done a number of outdoor gigs with my 800 watt and 112 and 115 cabs. I’d look back and see the LIMIT light blinking every now and then. On the Subway series heads this is totally fine. It was loud sure, but not obscene.

Attended a close friends gig and couldn’t believe how much more volume he seemed to be getting from his older Mark Bass TA501 and Ampeg 810. Just STUPID loud when we talked onstage before down beat.

Well there you have it. I suppose I don’t “need” 800 watts but it’s what I got. What I “need” is 2 Mesa Subway 410s...

“Honey? Um, how much do you love me?”

... I can hear her eyes rolling...
 
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#109
I felt I needed it in order to be able to get really clean at moderately loud volumes. I played a 100 W combo for over two decades before finally saying screw it and getting my PF-800. The difference in cleanliness is extreme, and yes, I use all of the cleanliness the amp has on tap, even though I am not playing that loudly in the grand scheme of things.

That said, I rarely play it at 800 W, i.e. with two cabinets, so it's actually a 400 W amp most of the time.
 
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#112
It's been awhile since I've had a gig that my PF-50t wouldn't handle honestly. But I only do blues and coffee house type stuff, anything else has a PA. But it really comes down to the type of gigs you have, anything with FOH support, likely 200 watts would be more than enough. If you're talking about no FOH, then you could easily need more than 500. Outdoor gig with no PA and competing with a Marshall stack or 2? 500 probably won't do it. That said, also not all about watts, your speaker situation is a large part of the equation as well.
 
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#113
Element Zero said:
I don’t have an answer for you or at least the answer you’re looking for. I’ve done a number of outdoor gigs with my 800 watt and 112 and 115 cabs. I’d look back and see the LIMIT light blinking every now and then. On the Subway series heads this is totally fine. It was loud sure, but not obscene.

Attended a close friends gig and couldn’t believe how much more volume he seemed to be getting from his older Mark Bass TA501 and Ampeg 810. Just STUPID loud when we talked onstage before down beat.

Well there you have it. I suppose I don’t “need” 800 watts but it’s what I got. What I “need” is 2 Mesa Subway 410s...

“Honey? Um, how much do you love me?”

... I can hear her eyes rolling...
Click to expand...
Yep, more speakers.

I have a Mesa WD 800 but around the house, I have a 1x12 Aguilar GS 112 that I play through.
After a while, I forget that the WD is an 800-watt head into 4 ohms, 400 watts into 8 ohms which is a lot of power but, it's still a 1x12 speaker. Got to run it into an old Diesel 1x18 4x10 stack, oh man!
It was something to hear that little WD box push that mess, it was glorious! :)
It was hard to believe that was the same amp at home into the 1x12.
 
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#115
Joe Nerve said:
Not sayin ya don't, but wondering.

I currently have a 700 watt Carvin that I love, but no longer trust. I'm considering replacing it with one of these 500 watters...

View attachment 4032359

...but wondering if I'll ever need more wattage.

In my experience all that's ever necessary in any band/gig situation is enough volume to get a comfortable mix on stage. Anything louder than that is going through the house anyhow.

SO... does anyone here feel they really need more than 500 watts, and if so, please convince me. I am open to dropping $150 more for the higher watt version. I just think right now its might very well just be a waste.
Click to expand...

Getting more than you think you need is usually a good idea with anything.

Played an outdoor gig. Bass and drums not into the PA.

Sure glad I had my 800w Mesa with 2 15's.
 
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#118
I think it depends on the gigs. For me personally? No. I’ve never needed more than 500w. But the largest crowds I’ve played were probably around 1500’ish. Also, every large gig I’ve ever played (1500 is large to me) I’ve gone direct to the board. My heavy gigging days were in the middle to late 90’s and my main amp was a hartke 3500. Later in the late 2000’s, I was gigging with an ashdown mark king amp and a Eden WT backup and Schroeder cabs and by then my big gigs were at most 200-300 people. Now I have a 900w bergantino rig and it’s honestly far more than I’ll ever need. I bought it just before covid because I was in three bands and expected heavy gigging. Now I’m in no bands and my rig has never left my house. Meh...I have a hell of a practice amp I guess.
 
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#119
mikecd1 said:
I've used my 800w Mesa Subway on large outdoor stages with no prob. Its 400w at 8 ohms and sometimes I'll run it with two 250 watt cabs which makes a 4 ohm load. It keeps up with an 9 piece horn band no problem. Running at 2 ohms I believe would curtail the output to 600 watts, but I'd have to check on that. Short answer, I think 500 watts is enough but I don't mind having just a little more anyway:)
Click to expand...
That's exactly right, and what I was talking about in a previous post. I run a WD-800 at the 2 ohm setting into 4 ohm GK 212 cab and it's plenty loud to keep up with keys, drums, 2 guitars, and vox.

When our 4-piece metal band gets together, I plug into the drummer's Ampeg 215 that he keeps in the studio, which is 8 ohms and can take all I throw at it. It's not as efficient as the GK at home but it's thunderous and that is more than enough power to run that cab. I usually leave the impedance switch set to 2 ohms, just so I don't forget to switch back when I plug back into the GK. That's just 300 watts into 8 ohms. It's always plenty loud and I never go past noon on the master. I have occasionally flipped the switch to the 4/8 ohm setting to unleash the whole 400 watts, but it gets only marginally louder and I end up having to turn down anyway, it's so loud.

I can't imagine needing more power than is on tap even limiting that amp to 3-400 watts. Anything that I can't cover with that rig needs to go through FOH.

Glad your recollection re: the old days sealed the deal for you, Joe. That 500 watts ought to be plenty. A couple of questions: how much of the 700 watts did you tap on your old amp, and what's the cab situation? Do you need a 2 ohm capable amp or is 4 enough?
 
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