My cabinets are all sitting at home right now *with no power being applied at all*!! How will they survive this drastic underpowering?!?!?
(Easily, because it's not a real thing)
(Easily, because it's not a real thing)
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Underpowering Orange terror bass
- Thread starter Motown_Phenom
- Start date
If you had taken ten seconds to go back and read you'd understand that I had phrased the question poorly and was actually asking if there was a possibility of damaging the head itself from pushing it too hard. Cheers
Btw. There are two kinds of over powering cabs.
Thermal happens when the average signal strength is too much and the speaker motor overheats. Distortion increases the average signal strength while peak is the same.
Mechanical is when you go past the elastic boundary of the speaker motion. The easiest way to do this is with loud low notes that have their fundamental and 1st harmonic boosted by EQ. Then you get a creased cone and or a smashed up motor.
Your 500w amp very likely can do the mechanical trick to your cab. You need to listen for distortion and back off. The farty sounds might sound cool but your woofers won't last near as long.
ok cool, so basically just use my ear to judge whether it's being pushed too far?
How would you do so if you were using the gain to get some 'dirt'? Would it sound different enough to be able to distinguish?
The sound of the speakers are being pushed will sound farty or flabby (obviously scientific terms 
)
Getting some grit is fine but you should be able to hear if it starts distressing your speaker. It will definitely go from good sounding grit to bad sounding distortion in a reasonably obvious way.
It has also occurred to me that my descriptions suck...
)Getting some grit is fine but you should be able to hear if it starts distressing your speaker. It will definitely go from good sounding grit to bad sounding distortion in a reasonably obvious way.
It has also occurred to me that my descriptions suck...
You might be overpowering them with that sarcasm!! Cab don't have enough sarcasm resistance!
I actually get the logic behind underpowering it’s jist not how amps work. Say if it was a centrifugal pump the result of the pump not being able to pump as fast as the water flow would be called “pump run out” which I think is what people think the effect would be if you were to play an amp into a cabinet with a higher wattage rating.
Not really, that's how a lot of accidents happen. Wear earplugs.
If you can set up your overdrive to be the same loudness as clean then you are good. That's a hard ask at the bleeding edge, you are listening to the low end "weight" rather than the rest.
You can attempt to balance the preamp drive and master. Eventually with enough trial and error your ear may distinguish preamp growl from cone cry.
I don't think that amp will get more low end at extended preamp gain but check.
Start with low master and crank gain until you get the preamp overdriving. Try MOAR wirh preamp. Start over with low gain and nudge up Master before bringing on the preamp MOAR. Make always small adjustments. At some poInt on master bringing up the gain will stay clean on the pre but the cones will be struggling.. Try again with a lower Master and see if you missed it before.
Btw. This is all solo. It's not at all easy to hear with band playing. Be sure to be giving the strings maximum thrust. Wear earplugs.
So now drop the bass EQ a bit and do it all over. Increase bass EQ and again do it all over. Best wait until your neighbours are mowing their lswn.
Depending what tone you are chasing and how much the gain influences the low end content you may be able to find 'safe' levels on the master and low EQ where you can play with the gain and no over excursion happens.
Wear earplugs.
If you ever get the feeling you are getting quieter you need to turn down immediately as you are thermalling instead. You can trust a cab rating as far as you can throw it.
Ok, sorry, too much snark. Driveby posting. Hope you got it sorted out OP.
I have a 350watt head running into 2 speaker cabs making up 750watts total. In rehearsal it sits on 1 or 2, at a show 3 or 4. In 20 years of playing I've never needed a more powerful rig.
I bet you have way more than 2 little 12" speakers for the job.
Thank goodness we're finally getting past that old husband's tale of underpowering cabs. I've seen cats on here go into SO MUCH detail about how exactly it happens, with quite exactly 100% of it being wrong. It doesn't really exist because it's the equivalent of trying to race a submarine and the ISS: they're just conceptually and realistically in completely different realms.
That said, I see people saying the Orange can readily break past its 500W rating, so it sounds like you want to stay fairly conservative on your EQ settings and maybe keep the master level away from the dime. I'm talented at that, having run a 500W amp on a pair of 2x10 cabs rated at a combined 400W at 4 ohms (and 350W on a 200W cab at 8 ohms), and have never had a problem. A lil caution goes a long way.
P.S. sounds like a really killer rig!
That said, I see people saying the Orange can readily break past its 500W rating, so it sounds like you want to stay fairly conservative on your EQ settings and maybe keep the master level away from the dime. I'm talented at that, having run a 500W amp on a pair of 2x10 cabs rated at a combined 400W at 4 ohms (and 350W on a 200W cab at 8 ohms), and have never had a problem. A lil caution goes a long way.
P.S. sounds like a really killer rig!
Sure? I haven't tested it properly, but my experience of running tiny amps into large speakers is that its louder rather than quieter... Run that little Champ into a 4*12 of the same impedance and greater sensitivity than its native speaker and I don't see how it can possibly not be louder.
congrats to OP for dealing with all the 'In Fun' comments with grace. The question by OP was asked in watts [amp power vs speaker handling capability] which may have triggered comments.
You can underpower a Speaker Cabinet Home Audio or Pro Audio so to speak. If speaker is fairly inefficient and to reach a certain level [or with excessive EQ] you drive the output stage [not preamp input IE; Drive control] into clipping/distortion or releasing DC current; you can damage speaker; a slightly more powerful amp than speaker rating if clean [not clipping] will not damage speaker. A 50 watt amp in live use is much more dangerous to a 300 watt capable Speaker than a 400 watt amp; based on needed dynamics and headroom available.
Hopefully amp limiters and or protection shutoff reduce any 'under or over powering'
The Terror's 500 watts with 2x12 should give you all the dynamics and headroom needed for most venues if not all.
Unfortunately for us Bass players we don't know if Amp/Cab can handle what we need LIVE until we try it.
or lucky enough to hear an amp we like tone of in live use.
Even if a 8" speaker is rated at 500 watts and we put a 500 watt amp into it; it aint gonna be loud enough.
'Watts' by itself is not a good idea on how to judge volume or quality.
In my experience for small/medium venues a minimum of 250 watt class D [A/B maybe a little less] and minimum of 2x10 [some 1x12 maybe] [300 watt+ capable] cabinet is needed. Large venue double power and total of 4x10's or 2x12's minimum. Unless FOH is available.
You can underpower a Speaker Cabinet Home Audio or Pro Audio so to speak. If speaker is fairly inefficient and to reach a certain level [or with excessive EQ] you drive the output stage [not preamp input IE; Drive control] into clipping/distortion or releasing DC current; you can damage speaker; a slightly more powerful amp than speaker rating if clean [not clipping] will not damage speaker. A 50 watt amp in live use is much more dangerous to a 300 watt capable Speaker than a 400 watt amp; based on needed dynamics and headroom available.
Hopefully amp limiters and or protection shutoff reduce any 'under or over powering'
The Terror's 500 watts with 2x12 should give you all the dynamics and headroom needed for most venues if not all.
Unfortunately for us Bass players we don't know if Amp/Cab can handle what we need LIVE until we try it.
or lucky enough to hear an amp we like tone of in live use.
Even if a 8" speaker is rated at 500 watts and we put a 500 watt amp into it; it aint gonna be loud enough.
'Watts' by itself is not a good idea on how to judge volume or quality.
In my experience for small/medium venues a minimum of 250 watt class D [A/B maybe a little less] and minimum of 2x10 [some 1x12 maybe] [300 watt+ capable] cabinet is needed. Large venue double power and total of 4x10's or 2x12's minimum. Unless FOH is available.
In the fourteen years you've been a member here that myth has been debunked at least fifty times. The abnormal high frequency content from clipping might toast a tweeter, never a woofer. Clipping never, ever, ever, EVER creates DC.
