• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

is 100 watts enough?

H

Harrod182

May 2, 2004
16
0
#1
hi,
i was lookin at buyin a new ampeg head for my cabinet i have a 600 watt orange obc410 and was lookin at the ampeg v-4bh
but it is only 100 watts but it is tube or maybe i should go for the SVT 350h but this is not tube but it is 300 watts. i was wondering if you could help me choose as i dont know what one would sound better. and advantages and disadvantages of each or any experiances you have had with them?

thanks
marc
 
#4
Generally, 100 watts of tube power is about as loud as 200-300 watts of solid state. That's the general rule of thumb to get an idea. The V-4BH works well for a 4x10, but yours seems to be pretty powerful. It was great through a B series Ampeg 4x10 at 400 watts, but I'm not sure if a 600 watt cab will still handle it positively. I think it might be too little power for the cab, despite being all-tube.
 
#5
i would tend to go for the extra watts. 100 tube watts will be louder than 100 SS watts, but not as loud as 300. As you may or may not have heard here, you generally need 4x-10x the wattage of your guitarist to keep up. 100 watts is great for small gigs, coffee shops, etc, but tends to get drowned out sooner or later. I usually advocate having at least 300 watts so you don't run out of headroom and can play a variety of gigs. To put it in perspective, I use a 150 watt head, a 400 watt head, and a poweramp that puts out 400 at 8 ohms, 650 at 4 ohms amd 1050 watts at 2 ohms per side. At a lot of practices and smaller gigs the 150 watt head is great. Eventually it starts to fall short. For medium to loud gigs and practices in a louder band the 400 has the extra 5 or 6 dB to keep up. It's not a ton louder than the 150, but it has the ability to go just a little louder, which makes all the difference. In the loud gigs the power amp (usually run at 800-1300 watts) has jsut a little extra oomph, with enough headroom to keep me from clipping. I'm not really playing any louder than i am when i use the 400 watt head, but i have a lot more room for trasnients, and i can add extra cabinets if i want/need to.

In case you don't know, the relationship between watts and volume is logarithmic. Volume is expressed in dB, which represent points on a logarithmic scale. To get an increase of 3 dB, (the smallest increase a person can hear), you need to double your watts. To get twice as loud you need 10 times the watts.
 
#6
100 watts tube is about the equivalent of 400 watts SS. Tubes can be pushed well into clipping and their natural compression and harmonic content will still sound good, while SS can't be pushed at all into clipping before sounding nasty. While there is ostensibly a 6dB differential between the output capabilities of 100 watts versus 400 in the case of 100 watts tube versus 400 SS the actual useable output is about the same.

The wattage of your Orange is meaningless; its sensitivity is what counts, and with 4 tens it will be high enough to make 100 watts tube quite adequate. If you were driving a cab with a single driver it might not be enough.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back