That was the rebel head series. I havent seen any tests on the bh series. Still I wont ever trust them, but its fun to make fun.
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Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out
- Thread starter Korladis
- Start date
The RH Series to my knowledge were the worst offenders, RH450 was just over 200w if I remember.
How can amp makers be so all over the place with wattage? It's an actual engineering value, right? Do they not think someone would actually bench test these things?
That was the rebel head series. I havent seen any tests on the bh series. Still I wont ever trust them, but its fun to make fun.
Oh yeah, that's what i was thinking of.
A watt is a watt, but it's the circumstances surrounding the testing that's in question. A lot of people are listing their peak wattage rating, which an amp could very will hit for a fraction of a second, under ideal conditions, but that has very little to do with an amps actual output in a real world situation. Meanwhile, companies like Peavey that report honest, real world RMS ratings get screwed because behringer has a "2000W" amp for 99 bucks.
If I remember correctly, GK amps can and do deliver their specified wattage a large portion of the time, with bursts of nearly double the stated wattage being normal and engineered for in their design. I believe that's why many GKs sound "louder" than other amps rated for the same wattage.
Like how food companies say fat or sugar free when anything below like 5% is ok to report as 0%.
There's no standard for testing output on amps. Even just measuring watts is only an electrical output measurement, it doesn't necessarily equate universally to volume (which is still dependent on other indirect factors like speakers and cab design). Are they measuring the peak output at the moment the amp is pushed to the point of exploding or the RMS at ideal operating conditions with no signal distortion (which isn't what most people want in tone anyway)? So you can imagine how all over the place it is, before you even get to marketing concerns.
Put rounds back on the ATK, on the amp, went from master on full/preamp controls volume back to od and preamp on full, adjusting the master for overall volume. Sounded absolutely killer. Sounded really great the other way too, haven't really even dug into the grapic eq yet other than a slight low/low mid boost. Everything sounds great no matter what I do. Rules.
Well hustled together $500 in gear sales, plus got paid out through the end of the month so that helps.
Also the three letter organization got back to me today of all days about continuing my interview process.
Also the three letter organization got back to me today of all days about continuing my interview process.
Did a little more tracking tonight. 4003 > AD200 > borrowed Avatar 410. Sounded way good.
Yep, pretty much what Corey said. Musical Instrument amp manufacturers are a bit notorious for smudging the numbers on their products. Like you say, a Watt is an actual unit of power. It really has nothing to do with volume. Where the confusion really enters is, like has been mentioned, how the manufacturer chooses to measure the power output of the amp. Bass Gear magazine, in their testing section, allows for up to 15% total harmonic distortion (THD) in the signal while testing power output in a frequency range of 20hz-20Khz, with up to +/- 7dB of the given output. Since amp manufacturers don't really publish their methods, who knows what percentage of THD they allow for, or what range they're testing in. Since it takes far less power to produce higher frequencies, this could mean that a manufacturer could be rating their amps based on its output measured with something like 15% THD @ 1khz, resulting in far higher wattage numbers. Even with these allowances, Bass Gear could only rate the TC RH450 at 236w @ 4 ohms. Mind, this is all RMS, not peak. To sort of highlight how much these allowances can influence the ratings of amps, when Reeves was prototyping their C225, they allowed for 1% THD at 20h-20khz and got 234w, while Bass Gear allowed 5%THD in the same range at got a rating of 256w.
I've read up on this stuff a bit, but I had a great and very informative discussion with Edbass years back regarding power ratings and Sunns, which I think might be of some interest to some of you. Namely, Sunns were rated using audiophile accepted measurements, allowing for less that 1% THD within 20hz-15Khz within +/- 1dB of 120w. What this means is that the 120w rating on the 2000s (and later 150w rating) is achieved because within 1dB of that output, across that entire frequency range there is less than 1% distortion. Comparatively, if rated using the allowances permitted by Bass Gear as discussed above, a healthy 2000s would probably rate out near 200w.
What this hopefully helps exemplify is that watts are not terribly helpful in really understanding how loud an amp will be, and more over that the ratings a company gives out are not always very telling. You'd like to think they'd be a bit more honest with their ratings, given that people can quite easily test these things, but I guess they figure the majority of consumers just aren't savvy enough or don't care enough to do so. Kind of insulting, really, but they are in the business of selling a product, so once any information gets to the marketing department I doubt it would matter anyways.
That was the rebel head series. I havent seen any tests on the bh series. Still I wont ever trust them, but its fun to make fun.
I have not seen a bench test of the BH series. Still, you couldnt give me a piece of TC gear.
Except they dont with the active limiter/compressor, which you can not defeat. So they never actually hit their numbers.
The reeves is a good example of amp power/voicing too. In the Bass Gear article they show that once you start measuring down low, those power figures really start to fall. Meaning you might have a more marketable power figure at a higher frequency and higher distortion level, than if you posted specs in the true "meat and potatoes" frequency band that actually matters to a bass player. Personally I want to see figures from 40hz to 200hz. Outside of those ranges it is easy to get loud. Guitarids do it all the time.
KFC!
Nah, not gonna double down. I can't say outright only cause they may do a sweep to see if I'm a creep online. But they used to sell computers. Now they don't. They have a very smart AI unit.
