Vintage Volume VS. Modern Volume

[Basspolizei]

I recently acquired a 1970 Kustom K200B and a brand new Ampeg B115HP all in the same month. I have a 170lb Ampeg 4X10 rig at the rehearsal space so wanted something smaller but powerful for home use. I have a Warwick 40W combo but that is only good for headphones. Today I unleashed both new amps. I played through a Steve Harris Fender, Warwick Thumb and Warwick Vampyre. Here is what I quickly learned and can't explain. The Kustom is I believe 100 watts tops. The Ampeg brags of 220. All I know is that the Kustom at 50% volume was way louder than the new Ampeg at 50% gain and 90% master. Ok to be totally fair the Kustom has two 15's but hell they are Jensen guitar speakers and still sound fantastic. My point is there is something magical about the physics of vintage electronics and the crazy volume they can produce. I just wondered if anyone else had experienced a similar event. Now go slappa the bass maaahn!

 

[hennessybass]

Science (and a lot of people on here) will tell you that a watt is a watt... and they would be right. They will also tell you that volume knob placement means noting, and they would be right... but, IMO, it's a lot more complicated than that.

 

[mpdd]

it's true, i played a holmes thc 300 from the 70s yesterday with the matching 215, it was way louder than i could have possibly thought it could have been

 

[waltdogg]

I'm no expert but a bigger cab will sound louder in comparison to a small combo. And a lot of gear was under-rated "back in the day." For example, and the Ampeg V-4 is a 100 watt amp, but not just any 100 watt amp. A healthy V-4 is ~120 watts at zero% distortion and goes upward of 150 watts at distortion. Maybe taking the Kustom to a tech wouldn't be a bad idea because the amp is 40ish years old and they could run it with a signal generator and find out how much power it actually puts out if you're that curious.

 

[Mr. Foxen]

You just learned how watts aren't volume and neither is knob position.

 

[Bassmec]

Back in day watts where expensive so loudspeaker manufacturers competed in the loudness per watt war.
In the lead where JBL and Altec with Electrovoice close on, CV CTS and Jensen where well thought of too.

Then Solid state watts became cheep and trailer park people treated the old high efficiency designs to the new cheep mega watts.
So technology had to invent further inherent redundancy (idiot proofing) this has resulted that huge unblowable lumps of copper where adhered to the voice coil formers and massively large travel suspensions where developed to increase X Lim to a point so far beyond X Max that nobody not even the worlds biggest moron would ever return one under warranty.
This is all at the expense of agility of tone and sensitivity of course, as in physics there is no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[One Drop]

Back in day watts where expensive so loudspeaker manufacturers competed in the loudness per watt war.
In the lead where JBL and Altec with Electrovoice close on, CV CTS and Jensen where well thought of too.

Then Solid state watts became cheep and trailer park people treated the old high efficiency designs to the new cheep mega watts.
So technology had to invent further inherent redundancy (idiot proofing) this has resulted that huge unblowable lumps of copper where adhered to the voice coil formers and massively large travel suspensions where developed to increase X Lim to a point so far beyond X Max that nobody not even the worlds biggest moron would ever return one under warranty.
This is all at the expense of agility of tone and sensitivity of course, as in physics there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Very true and fascinating.

 

[Basspolizei]

it's true, i played a holmes thc 300 from the 70s yesterday with the matching 215, it was way louder than i could have possibly thought it could have been

Great idea. I might just do that eventually. Thanks....

 

[Basspolizei]

Back in day watts where expensive so loudspeaker manufacturers competed in the loudness per watt war.
In the lead where JBL and Altec with Electrovoice close on, CV CTS and Jensen where well thought of too.

Then Solid state watts became cheep and trailer park people treated the old high efficiency designs to the new cheep mega watts.
So technology had to invent further inherent redundancy (idiot proofing) this has resulted that huge unblowable lumps of copper where adhered to the voice coil formers and massively large travel suspensions where developed to increase X Lim to a point so far beyond X Max that nobody not even the worlds biggest moron would ever return one under warranty.
This is all at the expense of agility of tone and sensitivity of course, as in physics there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Thank you sir for whatever the hell you just stated. If my free lunch was teetering on whether I understood you or not I would be a hungry bastard about now. (thank you though)

 

[Blue]

a Watt is a Watt … but no one talks about Speaker Efficiency … and no one talks about Distortion @ x Watts.

 

[Basspolizei]

I'm no expert but a bigger cab will sound louder in comparison to a small combo. And a lot of gear was under-rated "back in the day." For example, and the Ampeg V-4 is a 100 watt amp, but not just any 100 watt amp. A healthy V-4 is ~120 watts at zero% distortion and goes upward of 150 watts at distortion. Maybe taking the Kustom to a tech wouldn't be a bad idea because the amp is 40ish years old and they could run it with a signal generator and find out how much power it actually puts out if you're that curious.

Great point. I wish I owned the amp you speak of!

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

The SVT was rated at 300 watts.I saw a fresh out it on the bench and create a square wave At 400.
The original Fender Bassman was rated at 50 watts.
You also have to take into consideration the difference between tube and solid state. A tube amp of the same rating will seem louder than the solid state because of where distortion kicks in.

 

[waltdogg]

a Watt is a Watt … but no one talks about Speaker Efficiency … and no one talks about Distortion @ x Watts.

I forgot about speaker efficiency but I mentioned distortion @ watts. The speakers in that 2x15 are probably more sensitive and efficient than what is probably a cheap Eminence driver in the Ampeg. But cabinet size can have a correlation as well with sound projection.

Great point. I wish I owned the amp you speak of!

Thanks!

 

[khenner70]

You also need to take into consideration how x watts of output power is spec'd/measured. Is this a continuous sine wave at a particular frequency? Is that peak or RMS? Is it burst pink noise? Burst sine wave? And so on and so on. So while a watt is a watt in pure electrical terms, how you measure output power of an amplifier can vary dramatically. And as previously mentioned, loudspeaker effeciency, cabinet effeciency, distortion ratings, and more all play into this.

 

[Mr. Foxen]

What you need to do is not consider watts.

 

[TC.65]

What you need to do is not consider watts.

I agree, my Ampeg V4B Reissue is a LOUD 100 watts

 

[mactac]

I wouldn't worry too much about where the knob is set. Saying that "this amp at 5 is the same level as this amp at 2" is sort of meaningless, because:
1. The volume pots might be different, scaled differently, etc
2. Amps don't necessarily have clean power all the way up to 10. One amp might crap out at 7, the other at 9
3. One might have a higher output pre into the poweramp. All that means is that it's louder at lower numbers, but doesn't mean it's max output is any more.

The best thing to do is turn each amp up until it starts to distort/sound bad/max out/etc. Se which one goes louder while still retaining the tone that you like.

 

[nashvillebill]

That Kustom gets pretty loud, very quickly, as you turn the Volume knob up say to the 10:00 position... but then it won't get any louder. That particular model, the K200, puts out around 100 watts into 4 ohms-- and a whole lot less into 8 ohms. However, it seems really loud for 2 reasons: first, the volume potentiometer (and the circuit around it) is designed to give a lot of gain even when only turned up a little. After that, the power amp is maxed out so no more power is to be had. Second, though, the amp and cab design gives it a lot of midrange. Not a lot of deep bass, but a lot of lower midrange, which we perceive as loud bass.

 

[Jim Carr]

That 200b cab had one heck of a low mid kick!

 

[Downunderwonder]

Thank you sir for whatever the hell you just stated. If my free lunch was teetering on whether I understood you or not I would be a hungry bastard about now. (thank you though)

What he was saying is the old speakers made a lot of noise with those small number of watts by being built like ballerinas, whereas modern speakers are more like sumo wrestlers, extremely flexible but huge.