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TC Electronics RH450 Quasi-Wattage Ratings Discussion Thread

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#45
Musicman20 said:
I understand the thread, but most people who are moaning dont even own one....I understand a few of you do though.
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I've played one, briefly.

I'm not sure why its a requirement to own one to recognize that its wrong to lie. Then, its more than a little seedy to sit on your hands and hope that the situation goes away while still promoting the false figures on your website, in the technical manual for the equipment and in any other media.

I have no bitterness at all about the head, but I love the fact that there are a bunch of guys who act like if they ignore it long enough we can go back to talking about it as a 450w head.
 
#46
Fishheadjoe said:
You may be right about that, but it doesn't help when I am walking around spreading a lie and then having to face the music as a result.
Technically you may be right, but that's NOT how I feel about it.
I guess I should have a dictionary description of a lie in hand, when I get back to my friends and tell them that I have been mis-led.
That'll help my medium to long term credibility with them!:eek:
Fishheadjoe
Click to expand...

That's priceless:D
I think you should you sue TC for the all the pain and suffering endured!
 
#47
I dont really see who would care that much though? Unless you really didnt like it. I dont see any other manufacturers getting a slating like this for amps that arent actually rated what they should be...if it sounded like a 240W whatever, I get it, but it doesnt.

Hmm.
 
#48
Eublet said:
Simply calling it compression isn't at all what's going on with this head.
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Actually, based on TC's own post, that is exactly what's going on with this head, and there is no point in pretending otherwise.

I like compression (surprise surprise) and I have no problem with an amp being designed to cleverly use compression to emulate a tube amp. In fact I like that idea. So I have zero criticism of the effect, or the idea behind the design. But all it is is a carefully-modeled compression.

Deal with it.

Now, I happen to hold a strong grudge against TC for other past offenses to my sense of right and wrong, but that's a whole 'nother thread from a couple of years ago. :)
 
#49
Please someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, but as I recall when this amp was first introduced it was touted along the lines of "the loudest 450 watts you'll hear". Or something to that effect. I believe this was to increase its appeal in comparison to the other 500 to 600 watt class D's of the time like the Shuttle 6.0, Mark II, etc.

And now it's not even doing the 450 much less the ad copy comparison to the 500 and 600 watters?
 
#50
Musicman20 said:
I dont really see who would care that much though? Unless you really didnt like it. I dont see any other manufacturers getting a slating like this for amps that arent actually rated what they should be...if it sounded like a 240W whatever, I get it, but it doesnt.Hmm.
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By doing nothing, you are saying, "It's ok to lie to bass players when selling them something."

I would bet that TC and a few other bass gear builder's are watching this issue closely. TC worrying about backlash, but other manufacturers are learning from it. Deciding how "liberal" they can get with their future marketing campaigns based on the fall out from this. I'd rather the message be, "Bass players don't put up with that BS" rather than "It's ok to lie to bass players because they go into ostrich mode even if the facts come out later."
 
#53
joe, it's not lying since you weren't aware of the falsehood when you were talking to those folks. if it'll help you sleep better at night, you had 'plausible deniability'! :D

i concur with a lot of your opinions. as the owner of a classic 450, i read that other thread and the bgm article with interest. i, too, was disappointed in the misinformation tce was spreading with their ad copy/specs ... though not disappointed in the performance of the produce itself. having bought the classic used, i didn't really spend a lot of $$, so i didn't feel short-changed in that regard, either.

i, too, found tce's (uffe's) response to be inadequate & a little lame considering the hornet's nest that was stirred up.

moving forward, i plan to keep my classic 450. i'm also in the market for another head. since i recently purchased an aggie gs112 cab i've been spending time on the aguilar "club" and tone hammer 500 threads. i am impressed with dave b's involvement in support of his product(s), and because of this i will give strong consideration to getting an aguilar head. although i'm not unhappy with the classic 450, i may steer away from another tce product for the foreseeable future.
 
#54
drpepper said:
I think wattage is used as a guide to loudness, which is the actual comparator. Relative loudness is actually where willingness to pay rests. I think that wattage has become so intertwined with loudness (almost on an intuitive/emotional level) that people have great difficult separating them.
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This may be true for some. But others know what watts are, how they work, what they mean, etc, and know that they "aren't the whole story" as far as loudness is concerned.

In other words, when evaluating gear for purchase, some people really aren't treating watts as some kind of stand in figure for "loudness". They are treating them as what they are, watts.

For that person, discovering later on that the figure was reported incorrectly, intentionally (whether ultimately purchased one or not)... surely you can understand them being a little dismayed.

How is anybody supposed to figure out anything correctly when one of the the values plugged into the equations is totally whacked?
 
#55
This reminds me of the tech world, back when the Intel-AMD war was really heating up. AMD came out with a 'performance rating'. So it wasn't really the clock speed of the CPU, but rather the comparable Pentium chip's speed. Went a long way towards clearing up all the different ratings. Who knows, maybe it'll happen in the watts world too.
 
#57
Ben Clarke said:
MI marketers lie because a large majority of their customers can't handle the truth.
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Thanks Colonel Jessup :D
afewgoodmenjacktruth.jpg
 
#58
Watts really do directly correlate to volume, though, unlike hz to real world processing speed (where calculation/instruction efficiency, threads, and memory management all start becoming important).

The amount of compression and the baked-in voicing are the main things that affect perceived loudness from an amp. These things can all be changed on any amp.

You can't add a compressor pedal to a CPU, or turn a knob to change its instruction set. :)
 
#59
makohund said:
This may be true for some. But others know what watts are, how they work, what they mean, etc, and know that they "aren't the whole story" as far as loudness is concerned.

In other words, when evaluating gear for purchase, some people really aren't treating watts as some kind of stand in figure for "loudness". They are treating them as what they are, watts.

For that person, discovering later on that the figure was reported incorrectly, intentionally (whether ultimately purchased one or not)... surely you can understand them being a little dismayed.

How is anybody supposed to figure out anything correctly when one of the the values plugged into the equations is totally whacked?
Click to expand...

Okay, so, for these people who know what watts are, how they work, what they mean, and evaluate the relative wattage of amps completely independent of loudness, what other aspects of comparison are informed by wattage? What is the significance of wattage completely independent of loudness? This is exactly what I've been curious about.

And I can appreciate the range of reactions to being intentionally misled. Never said I didn't. What I don't get so easily is the difficulty people seem to have in separating their reaction to being lied to from their opinion of the amp.

If one of these people who have a higher level understanding of watts bought an RH450 and was happy with its performance prior to learning the true wattage, I'd have difficult understanding the logic of their opinion of the amp itself changing.
 
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#60
JPaulGeddy said:
This reminds me of the tech world, back when the Intel-AMD war was really heating up. AMD came out with a 'performance rating'. So it wasn't really the clock speed of the CPU, but rather the comparable Pentium chip's speed. Went a long way towards clearing up all the different ratings. Who knows, maybe it'll happen in the watts world too.
Click to expand...

We all know that wattage isn't the bottom line, but in many ways, its become the easiest 'short hand' method to gauge what one can expect to get out of an amplifier. It would be great to have an accurate measure, but since volume and perceived volume are moving targets that's a tough thing to do.

We know that companies mis-represent their power ratings fairly regularly...but at the same time, none have misrepresented to the tune of a 90-something percent exaggeration. This with the combination of deceptive numbers in the manual, in their promotional materials, etc., make it look like TC tried really hard to fake this up.

Where does this leave us? Whelp, apparently TC's claims that they're rating what you hear rather than what can be measured opens the door for anyone with similar scruples to follow suit...Open season for making up $#!T.

We know that our ears hear distortion as volume, We know that tubes create compression. We also know that a SVT is a 300w amp, even though it makes us believe its a 1000w amp for those same reasons. But Ampeg doesn't call it a thousand watt amp. Mesa tried that dook with the 400+, but at least they quoted a somewhat real number...a peak rating rather than an RMS rating. I still call them liars every chance I get when it comes up in 400+ threads.
 
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