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Loudest Rig?

S

sublime0bass

Aug 2, 2007
635
5
Boone, NC
#1
What is the loudest bass amplication system on the market today? Any combination of amplifiers and cabinets and possibly other "tactics" for increased volume.

What about in all of history? You could say an epic "Wall of Sound" or even an amazing amp-cab combo from back in the day.
 
#2
There's no such thing as "the loudest", because no matter how many watts or speaker cones are used, you can always add more. The Who, AC/DC, Population Two, and Led Zeppelin all held records for loudest band ever at one time or another.

Once you get to the point of that much wattage and speakerage, it's no longer in the realm of a single "product" to buy or name or point at. It's a system of many, many components, rarely all from one manufacturer.
 
#6
sublime0bass said:
What is the loudest bass amplication system on the market today? Any combination of amplifiers and cabinets and possibly other "tactics" for increased volume.

What about in all of history? You could say an epic "Wall of Sound" or even an amazing amp-cab combo from back in the day.
Click to expand...
Loudest would be, go to Clair Bros, buy one of their stadium PA's, plug you bass pre amd bass in. Then turn it up full, slap the E and wait for your eardrums to meet in the middle of your head.
 
#7
A9X said:
Loudest would be, go to Clair Bros, buy one of their stadium PA's, plug you bass pre amd bass in. Then turn it up full, slap the E and wait for your eardrums to meet in the middle of your head.
Click to expand...
You laugh, but somewhere out there, a doom musician is planning to do just that for a gig at a 100-seat bar ;)
 
#8
grateful dead's wall of sound... 70's excess at its best!

"Phil is using a new quadraphonic bass, the electronics of which were designed and built by George Mundy and the body and pickups by Rick Turner. The new bass has the same versatile qualities as the old bass: three pickups (bass and treble pickups covering all the strings, and a quad pickup which has a separate signal for each string); on each of the bass and treble pickups there are controls which enable him to select 1) the band-width of the filter, 2) the center frequency of the filter, 3) the kind of filter being used and 4) mix unequalized unfiltered direct sound with the filtered sound. The variety of sounds which can be achieved on the bass is the result of the many different combinations of these variables which can be used. The new bass has a frequency response with a crisper tone, and two quad pickups instead of one, the new one being a frequency-detector pickup. The main addition to the new bass is a Digital Decoding Circuit such that ten push buttons on the bass allow Phil to select any one of sixteen quad spatial arrangements of his speakers, and eight in stereo mode

The bass guitar system has two columns of fifteen inch tranducers stacked 18 high. Four power amplifiers are used as the bass requires more power for equal loudness. Since teh instrument has the capability to operate with individual outputs on each of the four strings, the array can be fed in this manner which makes it possible to play chords on the bass without intermodulation."
http://dozin.com/wallofsound/index.html
 
#9
sublime0bass said:
What is the loudest bass amplification system on the market today? Any combination of amplifiers and cabinets and possibly other "tactics" for increased volume.
Click to expand...

It'd likely be a headphone setup of some kind. Your eardrums would be destroyed in a split second. Big fun, eh?:eyebrow:
 
#11
One of my friends had a job at a bar and his rig blew. So he did the only sensible thing to do - he also has a PA rental service and put together a PA rig including a TC Electronic 1140 pre and some Crown poweramps. He ran about 10.000 watts in a little club where he normally used a 300 watts combo. The PA system at the club was 2x250 watts!
When asked about if it was good to play with so much power, he just replied: "WHAT DO YOU SAY?" he he.
No actually he had to turn it up pretty loud in order to hear it. It was so clean that it was hard to hear right in front of it.

My guitarplayer(!!!) once used 450 watts of tubepower going into 2 x 412" and a 2 x 12". Also in a small club.
Lets just say i still have a ringing in my ear.
 
#12
Also remember that it takes 10 times the power to double the volume. 100 watts is not twice the volume of 50 watts. To double the volume of 50 watts you need 500 watts.

Nice reference to Clair. Now there is a monopoly that congress should be investigating.
 
#14
Mcbride4.jpg


Image of John's "little manhattan" rig from "Thewhocollection.net"
 
#18
thombo said:
grateful dead's wall of sound... 70's excess at its best!

"

The bass guitar system has two columns of fifteen inch tranducers stacked 18 high. Four power amplifiers are used as the bass requires more power for equal loudness. Since teh instrument has the capability to operate with individual outputs on each of the four strings, the array can be fed in this manner which makes it possible to play chords on the bass without intermodulation."
http://dozin.com/wallofsound/index.html
Click to expand...

:bassist::bassist::ninja::bassist::bassist:
 
#20
A9X said:
Loudest would be, go to Clair Bros, buy one of their stadium PA's, plug you bass pre amd bass in. Then turn it up full, slap the E and wait for your eardrums to meet in the middle of your head.
Click to expand...

JimmyM said:
You laugh, but somewhere out there, a doom musician is planning to do just that for a gig at a 100-seat bar ;)
Click to expand...


Slightly bigger than a 100 seat bar, but...

I used to work as a live audio engineer for the sound company that got the annual contract for all the Christmas parties at the World Trade Center Boston. So every year right after Thanksgiving they'd convert their 20,000sq.ft. exhibit floor into a party space, & we'd load in a fairly substantial flown PA system...plus a few spare cabinets in case of emergencies. Then for the next 30 nights I or one of the other staff engineers would mix a different cover band for a different corporate office holiday party.

One year I got called to sub on bass for a band that was booked for one of these parties. Since I had access to all the PA gear we had on site, instead of bringing my bass amp I just brought an Intersound IVP preamp, then dragged a spare Adamson 3x18" subwoofer & the matching 3-way hi-pack box onstage, along with a Crest 10001 power amp. 5,000 watts rms per channel feeding a trapezoidal stack almost 10' tall; >118dB SPL at 10 meters from the front of the stage, from 20Hz to 18kHz.

And then I had to play "Celebrate" and "Jingle Bell Rock" and a ton of other crap.

But the look on the drummer's face was worth it.
 

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