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Overclocking cabinets...

#41
I own and gig a 6Pro. Nice, powerful head that does deliver some Ampeg tone goodness. I typically do not use it with low wattage rated cabs, but I have done so without any issues. As has been said already, just use your ears, the cab will pretty much tell you if you are killing it.

BTW, the 6Pro has a pretty cool feature; a variable plate voltage control for the preamp tubes. Its subtle but rolled down to the lowest setting it does impart some additional tube qualities to the amps tone.

enjoy.
 
#42
friendlybass said:
I'd say snag a less powerful amp, but that's my approach because I feel the need to protect my equipment from my own idiocy :D
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I want to throw this out. Even if your amp is rated at 400w @ 4ohms and your cab is rated 400w rms and is 4 ohms (most of that is irrelevant just equal power out to input ratings) the same problem is still there. The issue is if you get a solid state amp and drive it so hard as to clip the power stage it could double or quadruple the power output (though usually in bursts unless using some serious fuzz that would compress and keep your signal more consistent) so in essence, you'd need a speaker that has 4 to 5 times the rated power to protect your speaker if you are trying to run it dimed out with a ridiculously hot input. The problem there is you will burn your amp up. If you go the other direction, you could blow a speaker if you aren't using your ears to determine whether or not your speaker is stressing too hard or blapping, causing awful noise and damage to you speaker (and possibly your hearing). An "equally" rated amp and cab are going to have a similar problem. You may think that all the knobs turned up mean that it's putting out the nice even constant power that it is rated at but you will just be, most likely, clipping the power section sending 3-4X the rated amount of power to your cab blowing your speaker to smithereens. Really, it's better to have an amp that is rated higher than your speaker because of this and the fact that you can get up to the speaker's power rating without clipping the amp and any speaker blapping or distorting will be very obvious well before you go into clipping. A tube amp differs in that a tube power section soft clips as you turn it up and instead of going into a hard clip at the top of its power rating, it just starts to distort and brings that tube dirt to the sound. So, "over power" your speakers unless you are using an all tube amp and use your ears to determine if you are stressing your speakers. Plus, get some super efficient speakers to boot. They will get louder with less wattage and you will be less likely to turn the amp up too loud for them. Boom!
 
#43
Hoodywah said:
I want to throw this out. Even if your amp is rated at 400w @ 4ohms and your cab is rated 400w rms and is 4 ohms (most of that is irrelevant just equal power out to input ratings) the same problem is still there. The issue is if you get a solid state amp and drive it so hard as to clip the power stage it could double or quadruple the power output (though usually in bursts unless using some serious fuzz that would compress and keep your signal more consistent) so in essence, you'd need a speaker that has 4 to 5 times the rated power to protect your speaker if you are trying to run it dimed out with a ridiculously hot input. The problem there is you will burn your amp up. If you go the other direction, you could blow a speaker if you aren't using your ears to determine whether or not your speaker is stressing too hard or blapping, causing awful noise and damage to you speaker (and possibly your hearing). An "equally" rated amp and cab are going to have a similar problem. You may think that all the knobs turned up mean that it's putting out the nice even constant power that it is rated at but you will just be, most likely, clipping the power section sending 3-4X the rated amount of power to your cab blowing your speaker to smithereens. Really, it's better to have an amp that is rated higher than your speaker because of this and the fact that you can get up to the speaker's power rating without clipping the amp and any speaker blapping or distorting will be very obvious well before you go into clipping. A tube amp differs in that a tube power section soft clips as you turn it up and instead of going into a hard clip at the top of its power rating, it just starts to distort and brings that tube dirt to the sound. So, "over power" your speakers unless you are using an all tube amp and use your ears to determine if you are stressing your speakers. Plus, get some super efficient speakers to boot. They will get louder with less wattage and you will be less likely to turn the amp up too loud for them. Boom!
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Well I mean my set up is an amp that will run at 341 at 4 ohms and it'll get hot but it'll do it with no distortion. I forget where it peaked but I never push it that hard. The thingll put out 120 db out of my 8 ohm 410 at twenty feet away, and I never ever need that much volume. I just shared my approach cause the thread was about pushing cabs and I prefer to keep the power handling way higher than the amp'll output if I can because I dont push my amps hard and underpowering can't hurt ya
 
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#44
Factual correction... clipping a power amp can deliver at the very most 2x the rated "RMS" power. It is impossible to deliver any more than this.

With power supply losses, typically under hard clipping 1.5x - 1.75x is closer to the truth.
 
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#45
friendlybass said:
Well I mean my set up is an amp that will run at 341 at 4 ohms and it'll get hot but it'll do it with no distortion. I forget where it peaked but I never push it that hard. The thingll put out 120 db out of my 8 ohm 410 at twenty feet away, and I never ever need that much volume. I just shared my approach cause the thread was about pushing cabs and I prefer to keep the power handling way higher than the amp'll output if I can because I dont push my amps hard and underpowering can't hurt ya
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Under powering only hurts if it doesn't give you the volume you want before clipping. Under powering and needing more volume is dangerous. It sounds like you have some super efficient speakers. That's why I mentioned that. Efficient speakers will give you more volume with less wattage. There is less danger of blowing your amp and speaker up when overpowering and replacing amps is lame. So, over power and you can use your ears and get the volume you want (even if you have to get another can to help plus you'll have wattage to power that as well).
 
#46
Hoodywah said:
Under powering only hurts if it doesn't give you the volume you want before clipping. Under powering and needing more volume is dangerous. It sounds like you have some super efficient speakers. That's why I mentioned that. Efficient speakers will give you more volume with less wattage. There is less danger of blowing your amp and speaker up when overpowering and replacing amps is lame. So, over power and you can use your ears and get the volume you want (even if you have to get another can to help plus you'll have wattage to power that as well).
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Yeah my swr cabs rock! The OP just needs to make sure he tries stuff out to get the tone he wants at the volume he wants so he can buy accordingly. Its kinda hard cause you can't show up with your band and be like I'm here to see if these bass amps can keep up so we're gonna be a minute lol but most places dont mind you crankin it for a second or two if you're seriously buying.
 
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#51
Vince Klortho said:
You should read some of the pinned threads that discuss the myths regarding under powering.
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The problem isn't under powering in and of itself. It's clipping. Square waves don't allow a speaker's voice coil to cool as it sends twice the max wattage and voltage to it. So, in essence, a low powered amp doesn't blow speakers, a clipping amp blows speakers.
 
#52
Hoodywah said:
The problem isn't under powering in and of itself. It's clipping. Square waves don't allow a speaker's voice coil to cool as it sends twice the max wattage and voltage to it. So, in essence, a low powered amp doesn't blow speakers, a clipping amp blows speakers.
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Clipping DOES NOT destroy speakers - if it did, please explain keyboardists use of square/saw tooth waves, and guitarist distortion.

P.S. - this is ALSO covered in FAQ's
 
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#53
Hoody, you're wrong.

If I have speakers rated at 50,000w and an amp rated at 5000w in my living room, it will be UNGODLY loud and it would be nearly impossible damage the speakers with that setup. Underpowering is not a thing. If a signal damages a speaker, it's because it contained TOO MUCH POWER for the speaker. Period. Excessive clipping can cause problems with tweeters, but to get to that point it will sound absolutely unbearable. So unless you're deaf, you should be fine.

Rhonda Smith uses bass fuzz (aka super clipping) all the time through her Mesa 4x10s with tweeters, and while it sounds a bit unusual, I can't imagine she's just replacing tweeters after every show or recording session.
 
#54
At any rate, once you get past about 500w or so, you are going to have plenty of power for most bassists gigging needs. And the more speaker you have to go along with that in terms of both area and power rating, the safer you will be. If you use that 500w amp with 4 15s all rated at 400w, you are pretty much guaranteed to have more than enough volume and an almost imperceptible likelihood of damaging the speakers or the amp, no matter how you used them.
 
#58
Bass_Pounder said:
Clipping DOES NOT destroy speakers - if it did, please explain keyboardists use of square/saw tooth waves, and guitarist distortion.

P.S. - this is ALSO covered in FAQ's
Click to expand...
When the power section of an amp goes into hard clipping it will be putting out as close to true square waves as possible (not the scientific idea of a square wave but the physical. It won't be a perfect square wave) the amp will suddenly be spitting a lot more power out and the square waves will not allow the speaker to move freely enough to cool the voice coil. In the end, burning up the voice coil and rending the speaker blown also, possibly burning up the amp's power supply and power stage. With tube amps and limiting, a soft clip happens first causing distortion that isn't hard clipping (compression to the signal at 100:1). With keyboard square waves, you can still blow a speaker but through an amp, there will be some compression and smoothing of that square wave...and when playing a keyboard's square wave, it will probably be too loud in the first place to turn it up loud enough to blow the speaker but, it can. If you run a 500watt amp into a 50,000 watt speaker, even with the amp clipping as hard as it possibly will, you probably won't be heating up those voice coils enough to blow the speaker.
 
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