- Dec 18, 2000
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Yes. If you spill beverages in your amp, it could fail too.
Do bassists have trouble with the word, damping? These forums sure seem to indicate that.
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Return to quoting peak wattages?
- Thread starter JimmyM
- Start date
Yes. If you spill beverages in your amp, it could fail too.
Do bassists have trouble with the word, damping? These forums sure seem to indicate that.
What I'm saying is blowing speakers will not come down to just a simple cab/head wattage ratio.
I suppose if one dropped his rig out a 10 story building it would fail as well.
I suppose if one dropped his rig out a 10 story building it would fail as well.
But, the original intent of this thread, as I understand it, is to explain, or alleviate all the blown speakers reported on these pages. The vast majority of those cases can be explained easily with overpowering a small speaker cab. Sure, there's a million ways to f-up your gear, but what Jimmy was talking about is honest ratings , or at least some sort of levelling the playing field sort of numbers.
But that is my point. Is not my running 1200 watts into a pair of cabs rated at 800 watts over powering them?
My cabs actually like that better than pushing a 500 watt amp hard into a 800 watt set of cabs.
I do not think you will see a decline in blown drivers because there are too many variables invoved for the beginner consumer.
My cabs actually like that better than pushing a 500 watt amp hard into a 800 watt set of cabs.
I do not think you will see a decline in blown drivers because there are too many variables invoved for the beginner consumer.
I do the same thing, 1100 watt amp into an 800 watt cab. Absolutely sublime. But, you and me know how to use our stuff, alot of folks obviously don't.
Rick Auricchio
Registered Bass Offender
I don't think that really is a significant factor here. While a lower damping factor makes for a flappier tone, it isn't why people are blowing cabs. They're simply pushing them too hard, trying to create a new instrument from the bass. Detuning to avoid competition with overpowered guitars just won't work with a reasonable amount of conventional equipment.
I doubt the MB has a poor damping factor; it's more likely an intentional design of the amp to provide a softer tone. I also doubt your QSC is producing full power, unless you have verified the signal your preamp is feeding into it. To get full power from the 1804, you need 1.2v input at 8 ohms for full power.
You say that as if you are listening to what I am talking about and I just started playing music last week.
There is no softness to it, it is cone flap.
I love how if one hasn't performed a clinical test it does not exist. In other words I could have a real live Big Foot in my basement but if I have not obtained DNA mapping it does not exist.
Do you think when the Clip Lights on the PLX come on it is achieving full power? According to QSC it is IIRC.
Whatever the QSC is putting out matters not. From my example it is clearly undisputed the QSC is pumping out a much larger amount of power than the Mark Bass and for what ever reason my Cabs distort/flap less with the QSC than they do with the MB.
As far as damping factor I'm sure the QSC has a much higher rating than the MB simply because the QSC is an amp rated for 1800 watts into two 4 ohm loads.
Is this generally true, or are we just assuming it's true? No offense intended, but it seems like the sky's always falling, and things are never as good as they used to be.
I remember my parents saying the same thing back in the 70s - a time on which we look back as "the golden days" now.
I do agree with what Jimmy said about the guy plugging his behemoth head into a tiny 2x10 and stomping on an overdrive.
But for me what I say to that is
If you're gonna be dumb you gotta be tough!
But for me what I say to that is
If you're gonna be dumb you gotta be tough!
billfitzmaurice
Commercial User
- Sep 15, 2004
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- Owner, Bill Fitzmaurice Loudspeaker Design
You're not running 1200 watts into them. Just because the amp has that much power available doesn't mean you're using it all. If you were your speakers would be toast. The rating of your amp has nothing to do with how much power is going into the speaker; gain structure and signal content does.
The root of the problem with using watts as a standard for both amplifier output and speaker input capability is that no one without a high level of engineering chops actually understands how power relationships work. Those who do don't use watts anyway, they use volts x amperes. From a simplistic quantitative standpoint it amounts to the same thing, but from an engineering standpoint it's as different as night and day.
For those without engineering degrees the simple advice remains that if the cab farts out, turn the amp down. If you're blowing drivers, you don't have enough of them. And if you're blowing drivers in an 8x10 you're going to go deaf in short order anyway, ending your career in music, so enjoy it while you can.
What just about everyone seems to miss is that powering a cab rated for 800W with an 1100W amp (or whatever) is not the same as actually putting that amount of power into the cabinet.
Supposing your amps could put out their rated power on along term basis (they can't), if you set up an 1100W amp so that it was outputting 1100W continuous (sine wave, say) it would just be a matter of when and not if it would damage the drivers.
Under normal musical use, even if you're hitting clip on a fairly regular basis, the average power your amp actually puts out is a pretty small fraction of its rated power (dynamics, rests, etc.). The odd transient of even 2x the cab's rating won't lead to thermal damage if the average power going into it is 1/8 of its rating, assuming it's operating within its excursion limits.
For the most part I am indeed not running 1200 watts into the cabs most of the time but I do on occasion light up the peak LED's and I thought at that point the amp was close to full power.
However that was not the point of the conversation. How ever much actual power is being put into my Cabs there is a considerable difference from the 500 watt amp of the LMIII and the 1800 watts of the PLX2 and the QSC seems to be much tighter as well as more controlled.
Now this is an 1800 watt power amp at 4 ohms stereo and I am running it at 8 ohms stereo at 1200 watts.
There is definitely something to be said about Clean Headroom as well.
However that was not the point of the conversation. How ever much actual power is being put into my Cabs there is a considerable difference from the 500 watt amp of the LMIII and the 1800 watts of the PLX2 and the QSC seems to be much tighter as well as more controlled.
Now this is an 1800 watt power amp at 4 ohms stereo and I am running it at 8 ohms stereo at 1200 watts.
There is definitely something to be said about Clean Headroom as well.
The amp is producing full power (and maybe more depending on how far into clipping you go) at the instant when the clip light goes on, just as in the rest just after that peak the amp is producing no power. Average out all of those peaks and dips and you'll find that even when the amp is reaching full power on peaks, the average level is much below that and that's what is important in terms of thermal power handling. This is exactly why you can drive a cabinet with an amp capable of producing more power than the cabinet is rated to handle, if you're judicious. This is further complicated by excursion issues at low frequency, but you get the idea.
I realize that my comment was a bit tangent to the topic but people really do seem to miss that point.
What you're describing is clearly a case of the MB amp operating near its limits and the QSC not operating near its limits. The other thing is that the LMII might not clip as gracefully as the QSC. I've run the LMII into clipping and it does not make a pleasant sound. I totally agree that there is something to be said for clean headroom, and the key to not blowing up stuff is judicious use of that power.
billfitzmaurice
Commercial User
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50 watts is 20 volts at 2.5A into an 8 ohm load. The high current capability means that it's got enough power on tap to do some serious damage, but only with distortion levels that would be way beyond nasty.
No, because a typical 8-Ohm speaker has a series resistance of around 5 Ohms, so the speaker simply can't draw more than a certain amount of current from the amp.
billfitzmaurice
Commercial User
- Sep 15, 2004
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True, but that 100 amp capacity could come in handy if you want to arc weld with it.
