Personally I’d need at least 100 watts going through a 15. I wouldn’t want to risk anything less.
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How low can you go (combo wattage)?
- Thread starter Raman
- Start date
It all depends . . . . on the guitarists, and THEIR amps. Personally, anything under 200 watts for bass is a door stop. I've seen a lot of things, but never a 50w bass amp that would keep up with a 50w guitar amp. Never. Messrs. Fletcher and Munson nailed this years ago . . . . . .
D
Deleted member 165050
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I had an Orange Crush B35 35 watt bass combo a few years back, it would be more than adequate to jam with a couple of guitarists. Can't remember the speaker size but I think it was 12". My PJB Bass Cub will keep up with a couple of guitarists and a reasonably civilised drummer in a country lineup rehearsal.
I've heard as a rule of thumb you want at least 3 times what your guitarist is using.
So if they are rocking a 15 watt combo, 50 watts should cover it.
If THEY are rocking 50 watts then you'd want 150+ etc...
But like others said, it all depends on your guitarists attitude toward volume.
When there's 2 of them a volume war tends to start in my experience.
(take this with a grain of salt, but having more volume than you need on tap is just smart.)
So if they are rocking a 15 watt combo, 50 watts should cover it.
If THEY are rocking 50 watts then you'd want 150+ etc...
But like others said, it all depends on your guitarists attitude toward volume.
When there's 2 of them a volume war tends to start in my experience.
(take this with a grain of salt, but having more volume than you need on tap is just smart.)
You wanna go low on speakers, you need to go high on watts and vice versa.
It all comes down to how the guitarists mind works. a 15w 112 combo can easily reach ear piercing SPL levels,
and sometimes guitarists deem it necessary that their playing is loud. So they can feel it. Because they had a hard week and since they started carpooling the practice room is the only place left in their lives where they can turn up. Because their amp only sounds good when the powertubes are saturated.
Because 'it is not too loud, the amp is in the exact same settings as last week'. Some of those specimen will find reasons aplenty.
IMHO, the bare minimum for bass is a regular 10" cabinet, a 12" is better.
Of course there are those specialized things that occupy niches (Phil Jones, the 'supercab' builders) who can do more with less ...
but as a rule of thumb, I'd say a 112 with around 70 watts will get you audible and loud enough to play with guitars without sacrificing. The Fender Rumble is a cheap and easy to carry option.
115 / 210 with 100+ Watts will give you some headroom to be safe.
It all comes down to how the guitarists mind works. a 15w 112 combo can easily reach ear piercing SPL levels,
and sometimes guitarists deem it necessary that their playing is loud. So they can feel it. Because they had a hard week and since they started carpooling the practice room is the only place left in their lives where they can turn up. Because their amp only sounds good when the powertubes are saturated.
Because 'it is not too loud, the amp is in the exact same settings as last week'. Some of those specimen will find reasons aplenty.
IMHO, the bare minimum for bass is a regular 10" cabinet, a 12" is better.
Of course there are those specialized things that occupy niches (Phil Jones, the 'supercab' builders) who can do more with less ...
but as a rule of thumb, I'd say a 112 with around 70 watts will get you audible and loud enough to play with guitars without sacrificing. The Fender Rumble is a cheap and easy to carry option.
115 / 210 with 100+ Watts will give you some headroom to be safe.
Any modern neo-speaker combo like Fender's Rumble series or the GK MB series will do the job. I'd look at the 1-12 and 1-15 varieties which tend to be in the 100 to 200 watt range. These are very lightweight, the Rumbles feel to me like they forgot to put the speaker in it. The 1-12 models will fit in any car easily, the 1-15s might be a tight fit in a really small car, especially a 2-door unless you're OK with the amp in the front seat.
BobDeRosa
Commercial User
- May 16, 2012
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I have to disagree with @scottfeldstein about the limitations of a single 8". Not sure what brand he had on his workbench, but I've used my 50-watt Markbass 801 for coffee house gigs with two amplified guitarists and it's held its own quite nicely. Incredible volume in that little unit.
scottfeldstein
Roots and fifths and a little extra.
I'd be delighted to be wrong about this. Perhaps I should look into it further. I have had a Fender amp with a single 8 and it was just as described.
I went to a jam one evening and the guy who's house it was at said "Don't worry about bringing a bass amp, I have one". I didn't ask what it was. It turned out to be a Peavey TKO. At first I was thinking damn I should have brought my own amp but then I was amazed at how good that little amp sounded.
This is a better rule of thumb than what most posters have stated, but it's speaker (driver + cabinet) efficiency that matters. An Ampeg 810 has a published measurement of 100 dB at 1 watt*; that would allow a 1 watt amplifier to damage your hearing.
A smaller, more efficient speaker can sound louder at a given power level than a larger, inefficient speaker (A Barefaced Four10 is rated at 101 dB at 1 watt*; louder than an Ampeg fridge but half its size). You're just not going to find small, very efficient speaker sections in cheap combos because the driver and the cabinet construction would cost too much. But once you start shopping for separate amp and cabinet sets, you can get quite a lot of volume out of small units.
Within a single company's product range you can usually count on a bigger or higher-powered combo as being louder than a smaller combo. Comparing two different companies' products becomes trickier, as one company's 80-watt combo might not be louder than another's 40-watter.
(* Published sensitivity/efficiency specs tend to be fraught because of the differences in test environments and equipment and how they're measured, and because some companies like to, um, massage the numbers. They can still be useful as a very generalized guide though.)
BobDeRosa
Commercial User
- May 16, 2012
- 2,445
- 4,403
- Disclosures
- Owner, Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps
Now I now what's behind your comment. I heard that Fender 8" compared with others in a YouTube video and it was definitely the worst in both volume and tone.
Minimal usable gear. Fender Rumble 40 on the low end of acceptability. Fender rumble 100 toward the higher end of minimal usable combo. I have and use both, often. Also they are light weight, readily available everywhere, affordable, reliable, easy to resell, quality sound and build. You tell me, "whats not to like?"
Probably not what you are looking for, a little heavy, but will easily fit in most cars. My Eden combos are rated at 320 watts and sound great. I not suggesting to run out and get one as finding one in decent shape is going to be difficult. But I general I would opt for something with a little more horsepower than not. IMO, I’d rather use one with the volume on one, than have one where ten isn’t enough.
Well, with a combo amp, you're dealing with a combination of "limitations". Most of the limitation of the small amps will be the speaker.
I used a 25 watt amp and 5-string at a 20-voice choir gig years ago and it was easily loud enough. As a beginner I auditioned with a band (drums & e-gtr) using my 15 watt practice amp and got totally buried as the drummer bashed the kit with no control.
I've used a 40 watt combo (Fender Rumble) on stage with drums behind a plexi shield and it was more than enough for stage monitor purposes but I don't think it would do well filling the room.
I'd probably stick with something in the 40-50 watt or greater region, leaning toward the one with the bigger speaker because, unless it is high-end combo, the speaker's ability to move air will be more driven mostly by size. Let's face it, most combos in the 100 watt or under range use low cost speakers that are limited in Xmax and probably about the same efficiency so going up in speaker size will be of some benefit.
What would I do? I take my super small/light 350 watt head and Trace Elf 2x8 cab which sounds much better than any of the several combos I've had the last few years.
I used a 25 watt amp and 5-string at a 20-voice choir gig years ago and it was easily loud enough. As a beginner I auditioned with a band (drums & e-gtr) using my 15 watt practice amp and got totally buried as the drummer bashed the kit with no control.
I've used a 40 watt combo (Fender Rumble) on stage with drums behind a plexi shield and it was more than enough for stage monitor purposes but I don't think it would do well filling the room.
I'd probably stick with something in the 40-50 watt or greater region, leaning toward the one with the bigger speaker because, unless it is high-end combo, the speaker's ability to move air will be more driven mostly by size. Let's face it, most combos in the 100 watt or under range use low cost speakers that are limited in Xmax and probably about the same efficiency so going up in speaker size will be of some benefit.
What would I do? I take my super small/light 350 watt head and Trace Elf 2x8 cab which sounds much better than any of the several combos I've had the last few years.
I have a MarkBass MicroMark 801; it's very lightweight (under 15 lbs.), has a 50W amplifier and an 8" neodymium speaker. This rig sounds very nice; for it's size it has a decent bottom end, even when I play on the low B string. I use it at church as my own personal monitor, as it has a direct balanced line out for the house system.
