TC Electronics RH450 Quasi-Wattage Ratings Discussion Thread

[KJung]

Interesting choice of words, Ken, "perform as advertised"... It only "performs as advertised" if you agree that calling it 450 watts because to them it "sounds like" 450 watts is truth in advertising.

The SVT has already been called forth as an example of a nominally 300 W amp that can "sound like" more than twice that wattage, if you drive it into clipping (compression) and don't scoop the mids too much. I can take a ruler-flat power amp and make it sound like double its wattage too, by using compression and EQ.

Does that make it OK for every power amp manufacturer to double the power rating they advertise?

Your comment about the SVT is a good one. It sounds exactly like a 300 watt amp to me. Yes, if you push it into distortion (which sounds awful to me, but some like) it will get louder. That is even true with solid state amps, although most don't like the distorted tone of a solid state amp as much.

The RH450 keeps its same, inherent, clean tone all the way through its volume range. Similar to the Genz stuff, it starts to pleasantly compress, actually without much 'overt distortion' as you push it to super loud volumes, like a tube amp BEFORE you hear a lot of distortion and snarl. of course, when you dial in the tubetone with the RH450, the thing gets dirty... and even louder.

Very different thing IMO.

Again, no argument that I guess the 'correct' way for them to have done this is to hold seminars, etc., explaining in detail why their 250 watt amp should be compared to a typical 500-600 watt solid state amp'. Of course, once you try the amp, it becomes very clear. However, that would have been a trial killer I think. So, that would have been a difficult, but maybe 'ethically pure' way of doing things.

For the vast majority of bassists (I would guess 99%), the amp performs exactly as marketed, and again, there was NOT ONE POST saying otherwise that I know of prior to BG 'calling our girlfriend ugly'

 

[billfitzmaurice]

The BGM review lists the 'measured impedance' at 10.54ohms. But the graph of the impedance curve makes it look like is in the ballpark of an 8ohm cab, but its hard for me to read the graph clearly at full resolution on my computer here.

There is no such thing as a single figure measured impedance, so BGM should not post it as such.
The rated impedance is based on the driver DCR, with the DCR being approximately 0.7 times the rated impedance. That makes the 'ideal' DCR of an 8 ohm driver 5.6 ohms, but that's not a hard and fast figure, you'll see it anywhere between 5 and 7 ohms.
Because there's so much leeway in the possible DCR, the absolute minimum load the the amp will see, it is possible to use a driver with a higher than average DCR to allow using more cabs than a driver with a lower than average DCR, even though the rated impedance is still 'x' ohms.

 

[KJung]

I'm not looking at watts in a vaccuum,

All things being equal (sensitivity, input wattage and input signal), a 16 ohm cabinet will be much quieter than an 8 ohm cabinet, and will be much more likely to burn out a tube amp when plugged into the wrong taps.

It probably appears to have nice mechanical specs because you're hitting it with half as much wattage as you think you are.

Nope.... gigged this cab with a variety of heads. GREAT cab in every way IMO.

Edit: Even though it is over my head, I'm guessing BillF is making the same point above, that 'nominal impedance' (even less so than 'watts in a vaccuum') tell you very little about the actual performance of the unit. Again, all things are NEVER equal.

 

[bongomania]

Nope.... gigged this cab with a variety of heads. GREAT cab in every way IMO.

That is totally non-sequitur to the post you were responding to.

 

[KJung]

That is totally non-sequitur to the post you were responding to.

Nope, RPSANDS suggested that I thought the cab had good mechanical properties due to the fact that I was using the 'underpowered' RH450 with it. That was not the case at all. It took everything I could give it from a variety of heads, and stood up very well to a number of other 210's that I had in my stable at the time.

 

[adivin]

I used my RH450 and AE410 at an outdoor show on Saturday... the amp performed flawlessly. That said, I still have a bee in my bonnet about this whole thing.
I having been telling anyone willing to listen about how great my little bass amp is and when asked how powerful it is, I have been telling folks it's 450 watts. Apparently I have been lying to them and some of them are folks I hold in very high regard. This now speaks to MY character.
So what bothers me most at this time is;
-the lying thing
-the continuation of the lie
-TC's complete lack of regret regarding the whole situation. I have not read an appology, only an "explanation".
-online I have not seen any adjustments to TC or their vendors literature surrounding this line of amps
-I have not seen TC come clean on their other amps
-TC seems to drop in here when it is convenient to them, but have stayed pretty quiet considering the level of discontent amoung their customers
-as one who was fairly early amoung the buyers of this amp, I paid a pretty good coin for the amp, actually, over $1000.00CAD... and I know that in my above statement, I said the amp has not let me down, but it's marketing and price point really let me down and has put me in a position to be either laughed at, based on actual wattage or considered a liar, none of which at the end of the day, makes me a very happy TC customer.
TC, the ball is now squarely planted in your corner, what are YOU going to do, to satisfy customers like me!?
Fishheadjoe

+1 exactly. This really pisses me off. I will never buy another TC product. I hate how they are trying to play this off.

 

[rpsands]

No, I suggested that if its real impedance rating is indeed closer to 16 ohms, that any head you used with it would make it seem like it had great mechanical properties...because it's getting half the wattage you think it's getting.

 

[bongomania]

Nope, RPSANDS suggested that I thought the cab had good mechanical properties due to the fact that I was using the 'underpowered' RH450 with it

No, that is not at all what he was saying.

 

[bongomania]

Your comment about the SVT is a good one. It sounds exactly like a 300 watt amp to me. Yes, if you push it into distortion (which sounds awful to me, but some like) it will get louder. That is even true with solid state amps, although most don't like the distorted tone of a solid state amp as much.

The RH450 keeps its same, inherent, clean tone all the way through its volume range. Similar to the Genz stuff, it starts to pleasantly compress, actually without much 'overt distortion' as you push it to super loud volumes, like a tube amp BEFORE you hear a lot of distortion and snarl. of course, when you dial in the tubetone with the RH450, the thing gets dirty... and even louder.

Very different thing IMO.

Wow. Seriously now. TC themselves say that the source of their "wattage rating" was the compression model they used. Driving an SVT into clipping is the same thing as using a compression model. No clipping = no compression. No compression = no TC amp model.

They are not different things at all, and TC even says so.

Again, no argument that I guess the 'correct' way for them to have done this is to hold seminars, etc., explaining in detail...

Or they could have just told the truth in the first place, especially considering their "explanation" after the fact is NOT any different than the reason a classic SVT sounds so loud when driven into clipping.

For the vast majority of bassists (I would guess 99%), the amp performs exactly as marketed

See... where do I even go with this...
1) You do not speak for any bassists other than yourself. Any claims to the contrary are irrational.
2) 99%... what are you basing that on? I'll answer that: your imagination, because so many people posted that they like the way the amp sounds, which again is just a straw man.
3) The marketing includes the claim of 450 W. You can bundle that up in straw all you want, but it's still there inside.

 

[Jarrett]

Bottom line: TC lied substantially about their products. They have been called out on it and continue to lie about it publicly. They need to do something at this point to reinstate customer trust and loyalty.

The rest of the discussion here is a side track to that.

 

[adivin]

I think I'm probably like most other bass players. I believe specs mean very little, and performance means a great deal. That makes the TC amps winners in my book.

I prefer Jimmy's initial analogy. Let me expand on it. So you pick up what looks like a hot chick, you take her home and you get the best oral sex you have ever had. The performance was phenomenal. You then find out it was a DUDE! Wait, spec mean very little, and performance means a great deal. That makes your hot night out a winner in your book?

A little extreme I know, but...

 

[seamonkey]

..

"Headroom" was given as an example.

...

If I were to present you with the wattage of two amps, one bench tested at 200 watts and the other bench tested at 300 watts, can you tell me which one will provide you with more headroom?

I don't believe you can answer without addressing relative loudness of the amps.

If the claim is that headroom is in evaluated in absolute watts, it's an impossible comparison. If the claim is that headroom is evaluated as relative to the overall power of the amp and as a proportion, then wattage is a meaningless label.

Yes - if one amp was rated 200W FTC, and another 300W FTC, then all things cabinet wise being equal the 300W FTC would be louder.

Same would be true if both amps were rated "EIA" or "EIAJ".

"Headroom" is a farce. All the standard include burst tests. Pleading "headroom" is ridiculous.

Consumers need to demand manufacturers Stick to the standards or work with the engineering societies to come up with new standards that work industry wide. Individual manufacturers can't go making up their own ratings and then call out to special pleading when their amps don't meet any standard of measure. It's your $$$ - speak with them.

One car analogy works. "SAE horsepower", you can't claim SAE equivalence. Either you are or aren't SAE certified. The often misguided torque discussion creeps in but torque is part of the SAE certification.

TC Electronics in my opinion is a great company. They led with with their marketing sense and not common sense. They've been called out on this.

I'm surprised no one brought up class action. It's an option for consumers, As is suing them yourself. I bet everything would be settled out of the public eye in this were to happen.

 

[seamonkey]

Bottom line: TC lied substantially about their products. They have been called out on it and continue to lie about it publicly. They need to do something at this point to reinstate customer trust and loyalty.

The rest of the discussion here is a side track to that.

I've seen other companies do good in circumstances like this. Rebates, refunds, or upgrades. Yes, they loose profit, but they earn customers. And gain the profit back later. TC isn't acting like they company I thought they were.

 

[Fishheadjoe]

Seamonkey, the thought of a class action suit had crossed my mind, but given my location, I doubt that it would be effective for me.
I can make this really easy for TC... send me a 450 watt amp and I'll send you back my 450, in it's original box and your marketing guru's can rebadge it as your entry level amp and re-sell it!
... not holding my breath here!
Fishheadjoe

 

[BurningSkies]

Ken, I was a blind man when dating the RH450. Your girlfriend analogy hit home with me...
When I checked out the RH450, I was not able to play the amp at performance level. I was given an opportunity to play with it and assess it tonal qualities and the various bells and whistles, but was not given an opportunity to crank it and see what i could do... so, my only recourse was to believe that the published specs were correct and honest. They were not.
I can't really say that I would have even considered the amp, had I known then, what I know now. I was not given an opportuntity to make that decision, it was taken away from me by product marketing. Who knows what I may have purchased given correct information.
That is the crux of my frustration. I thought I bought "A" and I ended up buying "B".
Fishheadjoe

Obviously, then you're not a "working bassist" since we've been told that they ONLY care about tone. They don't care about any other aspect. Do you have your bassist time card, because I'd like to check it for veracity before going any further in this discussion.

If you use the same straw man in every post, I guess that makes it relevant...


....right?

See above. Are you a 'working bassist"? because if you're not...

Funny that Ken spends so much time talking about the tone of an amp that he didn't even like. Especially in a thread that has nothing to do with the tone of the amp in question.

 

[lgrankin]

Seamonkey, the thought of a class action suit had crossed my mind, but given my location, I doubt that it would be effective for me.
I can make this really easy for TC... send me a 450 watt amp and I'll send you back my 450, in it's original box and your marketing guru's can rebadge it as your entry level amp and re-sell it!
... not holding my breath here!
Fishheadjoe

Sign me up!

 

[lookiel]

I agree TC's response has been so far very weak,
Even though I am pleased with my RH450
I would not purchase another product from them!

 

[KJung]

Obviously, then you're not a "working bassist" since we've been told that they ONLY care about tone. They don't care about any other aspect. Do you have your bassist time card, because I'd like to check it for veracity before going any further in this discussion.



See above. Are you a 'working bassist"? because if you're not...

Funny that Ken spends so much time talking about the tone of an amp that he didn't even like. Especially in a thread that has nothing to do with the tone of the amp in question.

Not talking about tone at all... that is purely personal. Talking about performance compared to 8 or 10 other amps rated similarly or higher in wattage that I've directly compared, in a solo setting, in a GTG with various 'raters and players and listeners' and 'on the gig'.

Tonality is a purely personal thing.

Again, there were NO bassists who posted (not even one that I can remember) that the RH450 did not perform ABOVE the expectation of a 450 watt amp, before the review. Why would a working bassist not care about that first and foremost. I don't get it?

 

[drpepper]

I agree TC's response has been so far very weak,
Even though I am pleased with my RH450
I would not purchase another product from them!

Can't argue with that.

 

[KJung]

Wow. Seriously now. TC themselves say that the source of their "wattage rating" was the compression model they used. Driving an SVT into clipping is the same thing as using a compression model. No clipping = no compression. No compression = no TC amp model.

They are not different things at all, and TC even says so.


Or they could have just told the truth in the first place, especially considering their "explanation" after the fact is NOT any different than the reason a classic SVT sounds so loud when driven into clipping.

See... where do I even go with this...
1) You do not speak for any bassists other than yourself. Any claims to the contrary are irrational.
2) 99%... what are you basing that on? I'll answer that: your imagination, because so many people posted that they like the way the amp sounds, which again is just a straw man.
3) The marketing includes the claim of 450 W. You can bundle that up in straw all you want, but it's still there inside.

god help me. Again, I'm basing my 99% number on the percentage of triers/owners of the RH450 who were impressed with the OUTPUT of the amp, and the VAST majority (if you go back to the original threads) feel that the RH450 outperforms other amps of similar or higher wattage rating. Given that TB posters are a little more into this than the average bassist, I would probably say 99.9% is a better figure.

Again (and how this is a 'straw man' I don't get at all), if not knowing the specs at all results in you believing, feeling, and enjoying the amp as it was sold to you (which again 99% do, based on reported PERFORMANCE... tone is of course personal), then this is a very 'grey area'.

If, again, you are one who says, give me true individual pieces of limited data regardless of its relationship with the way the entire system performs, then I again totally see that point.

I don't understand why you would equate this with the Accuswitch debacle, which is what many readers would do if the discussion about the actual performance of the amp isn't also discussed.

If you see this issue the same as the Accuswitch thing, then I do understand why you would think my posts are 'straw men'. However, I would strongly disagree with you.