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Mesa Boogie M3 Carbine

T

treblemouth

Jul 25, 2011
14
0
Malaysia
#1
Hi!

I have this M3 Carbine head and planning to adding Mesa powerhouse 610.

My question is wether my M3 is able to support this 610 900 watts RMS?

Some people told me your head amp (watts) must be higher than your bass cab (watts). Is that true?


Thanks for viewing!
 
#2
I'm new here...I recently switched from guitar...But either you are trolling or someone wanted to damaged your health and gear :)

Rather the opposite : the cab wattage should be rated higher than your amp wattage (for guitar stuff it was about 30% more than the amp, I don't know about bass though...)
 
#3
Cab underpowering is a huge myth. If it were actually true, You'd blow speakers in Your cab every time that You played through it at lower volumes. I think all this is actually stickied in an amp FAQ's thread.

I had an M3 Carbine for a minute, and a (very cool amp BTW) Very loud 300 watts. I ran it with an Ampeg 810 quite a few times, with no issue.
 
#5
You turn it as loud as you need to.

I found mine ultra boomy so watch the low end.

And no. The there is no magical wattage calculation. Just try the cab and and see if starts to reach its max at the volume you want to play.
 
#8
Amps aren't at full power all the time.

Also, cabinet power ratings are usually optimistic. What this means is that you should just get stuff that is realistic for your gig.

Tell us what you want to do and what you currently have and let us help you figure out what'll work. That's what we're here for!
 
#9
Hoodee said:
Wait...so you guys are telling me that (as it goes for bass stuff) the amp can actually overpower the cab and it still safe ?
Click to expand...


let's say you have an amp that's rated for 300 Watts @ 8 ohm and and a cab that is rated 200 atts @ 8 ohm. If you only turn the amp up 1/3, you won't do any damage. If you turn it wide open on the other hand, that's when things might get ugly for your speakers.
if you've got a 1000 Watt amp and an 800 Watt cab, you'll certainly be able to get LOTS of volume before the cab gets into the red zone.

same goes for guitar, as far as I know.
 
#10
Man, for 12 years I've been playing guitar, so I'm still kind of in the guitar world...When using an all tube amp I was always tought to have at least 30% more power handling on the cab than the amp could actually deliver in order for it have a good tone and for the whole setup to be safe...

Everyday, you learn something new...

Low Sound Love said:
if you've got a 1000 Watt amp and an 800 Watt cab, you'll certainly be able to get LOTS of volume before the cab gets into the red zone.

same goes for guitar, as far as I know.
Click to expand...

I don't know about bass, but us guitar players refer to this as "speaker distortion"...unless you're playing blues, it's not really desireable. Plus, guitar players tend to crank the master volume, mostly because when you do so, you start to get some distortion from the poweramp...and that is just like honey to guitar players ears :) thus, in order to keep it safe, the cab should be able to handle more than the amp can deliver...
 
#11
Hoodee said:
Man, for 12 years I've been playing guitar, so I'm still kind of in the guitar world...When using an all tube amp I was always tought to have at least 30% more power handling on the cab than the amp could actually deliver in order for it have a good tone and for the whole setup to be safe...

Everyday, you learn something new...
Click to expand...

This is because tube guitar amps are rated for clean wattage. But who the **** plays them clean. So when you're overdriving the amp you're putting out maybe 50% more wattage than rated so you want a cab that can handle that.

SS bass amps...not so much.
 
#13
Hoodee said:
Yes, but how how high did you turn your power amp on ?
Click to expand...
As loud as I needed it.
At some point in the getting loud game You're gonna run out of watts or speakers ability to keep up with what Ya got. You can definitly overpower a cab, but it'll let You know when You're at that point(fart'n out, when Your amp still has plenty of gas on tap), at that point it's time for a more speakers. Chances are if You're really having to crank on an amp to get what You need out of it with the cab You're using, it's time for something with more juice.

At our rehearsal space, I run an Ampeg 810 E with a V4(volume set between 9 and 10 o'clock). The V4 is "rated" at 100 tube watts, and it easily keeps up with a loud drummer and a cranked JCM 800. No issues period with the cab/ amp combination.
 
#14
Hoodee said:
I don't know about bass, but us guitar players refer to this as "speaker distortion"...unless you're playing blues, it's not really desireable. Plus, guitar players tend to crank the master volume, mostly because when you do so, you start to get some distortion from the poweramp...and that is just like honey to guitar players ears :) thus, in order to keep it safe, the cab should be able to handle more than the amp can deliver...
Click to expand...

If you're planning on using every drop of power the amp can deliver, and then some more to put it in overdrive, you're right to get a cabinet that has a higher power rating. I was just pointing out that if you use only half of the amp's output potential, you could do fine with a cab that is rated lower than your amp.
 

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