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Two 150 Watt Amps or One 300W Amp

#21
eyeballkid said:
:rollno:
Plenty of people with more acoustic understanding and WAY more diagnostic gear can show you VERY CLEARLY how the different distances between amps of the same signal onstage (especially bass frequencies) can and DO create hotspots of beaming and troughs of low volume in front of the stage due to wavelength interferences. Do a search, youll find the threads complete with PICTURES!! WOOOWEEE!!

Also, try running two amps in any place without perfectly good wiring and you WILL get a hum most likely. My house does it. Alot of clubs have the same problem.

Having a fail safe redundancy is VERY different that having sonic mismatching..

EDIT: P.S... Im not trying to bust yer balls... just dont fly off saying what I write is 'poor' unless youre dead right and can prove it. I try to be tactful in my disagreements and concede when Im wrong.. its nice for that to be standard practice, but alas, this is the interwebs.
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Stop running about the stage with the faffing cabinets lad and see if you can put them back in exactly the same place as they where when I considered the original posters question.
And don't sneek round the back and rewire one out of phase
while i'm not looking either.:crying:
Ergo: The cabinets are the fixed value in this experiment.
The quantity of amplifiers is the only known variable I am aware of.:bassist:
 
#22
eyeballkid said:
its the erroneous half reading of this thread that is bothering me...

...Hooked on Phonics and Tact worked for me.
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Due to the rather general nature of the OP's post, perhaps due by accident, to a lack of detail/knowlege there is bound to be some searching for some common conversational ground in the responses. Some of the so-called "erroneous half-reading" has, IMO, been honest, but well-meaning mistake (at worst) to try to answer the OP's post in what I see is good faith effort. So...

Relax. Please.

And tact?? Really??
 
#23
The internet is full of half truths and down right misinformation.

Phase cancellation is real. Will someone please tell the sound man to turn off half the speakers cuz he doesn't know about this.

Ground loops are real. You will probably never experience them but they are easy to eliminate.

Running multiple amps into multiple speakers works really well. All sound men do it regularly.

Last time I did the math 150 +150 added up to ???

I would not take any TBr's opinion as fact. I'm not asking you to believe me. Go try it yourself or go to engineering school. Opinions here will tend to confuse ya.

YMMV
 
#24
Bassman 100 said:
The other + was thinking I would have my stand-by anp right there with me should I have amp failure.
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This is the main reason I use two combos for my gig rig as opposed to one combo + extension cab. I use my dual outs from my pedal board too but I usually stack the amps. Might start experimenting with spreading them out, to experience this phase cancellation thing for myself. Sounds trippy.

--Bomb :bassist:
 
#25
Adam Bomb said:
This is the main reason I use two combos for my gig rig as opposed to one combo + extension cab. I use my dual outs from my pedal board too but I usually stack the amps. Might start experimenting with spreading them out, to experience this phase cancellation thing for myself. Sounds trippy.

--Bomb :bassist:
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from an audience perspective it's not fun.....you get to watch the guy but not hear much......worse is improper sub placement that allows you to see the bass dude run all over the neck and produce only one note.....
 
#26
Bassmec said:
Assuming two similar 8 ohm cabinets stacked vertically to handle afore said 300 watts.
Lets consider tube amps shall we.:bassist:
against the same cabinets with two amps delivering 150 each.
So exactly the same result Bill?, If not where and exactly how are we suddenly getting phase issues or loss of power here?!.
Also two 150 watt for instance perfectly serviceable sound city bass amps are actually quite a bit cheeper on flea bay UK than one second hand SVT CL, VR Fender or Sunn 300 Or for that matter Mesa 400+.
So big power tube bass amps are in fact more than twice the price of two lower powered ones, thanks in part to the sort of erroneous half scientific stuff found in this thread.
Keep up the good work chaps!
In fact the 12 EL34 fixed variable biased tubes in the two sound cities develop slightly more clean power via their partridge output transformers than the 12 stock fixed bias 6L6's do in the 400+.
I am sure you are aware that troublesome earth loops in between integrated tube amps have been a thing of the past since the invention of high impedance isolation transformer boxes, such as Sowter, Lehle P Split/Dual/Little Dual, Radial aby, and little labs distro.
Thats how us internationally famous and highly sought after recording studio engineers do re-amping and multi-amping all with such good signal to noise results, Just in case you where wondering.
PS Yes I am perfectly aware that a gazillion watts of class D amplifier is now only the same price as a half chewed Hershey bar and weighs about the same.:spit:
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I gave my opinion. You can accept it or reject it, but I'm not going to argue about it. BTW, IME the more words one must use to try and make a point the lower the likelihood said point is valid.
 
#27
Bassman 100 said:
Which would you prefer - Two 150 Watt Amps or One 300W Amp. Taking Lt. & Rt. from your Multi effects Board. Does using a pair of 150's have any advantage or disadvantage over one 300 Watt amps ?
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Assuming (as it seems I alone have been) that you are talking about say for scientific arguments sake, a vertically stacked pair of similar cabinets powered from a single amp head capable of 300 watts into the impedance shown by the parallel pair of cabinets present.
You then exchange the single 300 watt head for a pair of similar quality heads that deliver 150 watts each into whatever the impedance of the individual cabinet (still sitting in the same vertically stacked position) is.
The result is going to be exactly the same output.
Unless you assume something like larger amplifiers have bigger individual watts due to being more toward the upper end of the product range price structure?.
Advantages are brilliant get you home backup reliability.
Other assumptions that might have been made from your post seem to oddly include.
A) every amplifier is in fact really a combo?.
the L and R outs of your pedal board are not ground loop isolated and if a second cable is used throws the combos and thus the speakers randomly about the stage to left and right and in time and space causing all sorts of phase and time alignment issues.:crying:
I don't think thats what you are scientifically expecting to happen here is it?.:ninja:
 
#28
billfitzmaurice said:
I gave my opinion. You can accept it or reject it, but I'm not going to argue about it. BTW, IME the more words one must use to try and make a point the lower the likelihood said point is valid.
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Here it is in pictures then Boss?, Get the new all tube svt 900 out of the truck set it on 1.33333 ohms and daisy chain the 3 X 8 x 10 bass cabs next I hear you say?
Invalid Link Removed
Oi Mate! Last time I looked in the back-line truck there was only Dave's 3 Blue line 300's and a sowter 1 in 3 out iso box, will that do as strangely I cant seem to find the new all tube svt 900 mate.
Also would flying the 8 X 10's be better for dispersion
or shall I just leave them safely side by side on the back riser as they don't have coded flying points and there isn't a yale block up there and its not too hard for Mr Pybus to be on axis at ear level with any one of them set up like that.:help::D
 
#30
As far as solid state amps, there is absolutely NO difference between one "300 watt" amp and three hundred "1 watt" amps, because a "300 watt" amp is a bunch of tiny "amplifiers" coupled together to produce huge output power.

If your cabinets are stacked vertically and you're using proper ground isolation techniques, it shouldn't matter at all if you're powering each speaker with its own separate amp.
 
#31
Weeeeelllllll
if we're being technical, there is always inefficiency when there is more signal chain. Make it long enough and you start to get delays, not to mention the actual power lost in each amp regardless of "rating" which is ultimately just an educated guess in most cases that doesn't include peaking and amp limiting kick-in's etc (holy run on sentences, Batman!). Three Hundred "1 watt" amps just wouldn't work as well as a single 300 watt amp... which is the same reason I would actually go for a 300 watter.
 
#32
I don't see a problem with two identical amp/cabinet setups, properly wired and placed next to one another... Maybe 150 watts is a bit low, but 200 or 300 watts apiece with decent identical cabinets vs. one 400-to-500-watt rig shouldn't give you any weird phase issues, unless maybe you space the two rigs far apart and stand in a spot of the soundfield where the soundwaves arrive at different times, depending on the frequency...

Plus with two identical rigs, you can use neat effects like an EHX Stereo Clone Theory and actually run it in stereo, which sounds REALLY amazing, almost like a Roland JC-120 amp on steroids.
 
#35
rbbrchkn said:
As far as solid state amps, there is absolutely NO difference between one "300 watt" amp and three hundred "1 watt" amps, because a "300 watt" amp is a bunch of tiny "amplifiers" coupled together to produce huge output power.

If your cabinets are stacked vertically and you're using proper ground isolation techniques, it shouldn't matter at all if you're powering each speaker with its own separate amp.
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Could you educate me on ground isolation techniques please?
 
#37
Bill Fitzmaurice, how do you do it? I'm serious. How do you do it???

How do you find the patience to continue to provide correct information to fellow TB'ers day after day who, for whatever reason, refuse to listen and learn from you? You must have days when you just roll your eyes in response to what you read in some posts, but you have the patience and the willingness to continue to give TB'ers your advice and guidance. I have never met you, and I probably never will have that opportunity since we are around 3000 miles apart, but if you lived here, I would treat you to sushi or jumbo prawns with a minimum of three dipping sauces.

I am not an electrical or acoustical engineer (I'm a civil engineer), but I have the ability to recognize good advice on TB when I see it. Thanks to you, I have learned about dispersion, and the benefits of the fEarful 15/6 design. I am glad I have the ability to listen and learn from others. In my book, you are the top dog on TB when it comes to acoustic design. All I can say is, thank you for continuing to stay on TB and help guide so many helplessly lost and misguided souls.
 
#38
SactoBass said:
Bill Fitzmaurice, how do you do it? I'm serious. How do you do it???

How do you find the patience to continue to provide correct information to fellow TB'ers day after day who, for whatever reason, refuse to listen and learn from you? You must have days when you just roll your eyes in response to what you read in some posts, but you have the patience and the willingness to continue to give TB'ers your advice and guidance. I have never met you, and I probably never will have that opportunity since we are around 3000 miles apart, but if you lived here, I would treat you to sushi or jumbo prawns with a minimum of three dipping sauces.

I am not an electrical or acoustical engineer (I'm a civil engineer), but I have the ability to recognize good advice on TB when I see it. Thanks to you, I have learned about dispersion, and the benefits of the fEarful 15/6 design. I am glad I have the ability to listen and learn from others. In my book, you are the top dog on TB when it comes to acoustic design. All I can say is, thank you for continuing to stay on TB and help guide so many helplessly lost and misguided souls.
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Mega-million +1!!!
 

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