What indicates how loud an amp/cab is?

[JensCambre]

title says it all...

 

[CL400Peavey]

For the cab, as that is the only part actually making noise:

It is determined by how much volume (SPL) it puts out, before it hits any one of a number of physical/mechanical limitations.

 

[Jaco who?]

Percieved loudness of an amp seems to have more to do with "voicing", or what frequencies it emphasizes. The GK MB200 is really loud for 200 watts, because it doesn't waste a lot of energy reproducing boomy lows that tend to be pretty useless anyway.

 

[wiro]

Keep in mind that low frequency's eat lots more power than high frequency's.
So how loud an amp/cab combination is depends on: Power (watts, which depends on resistance from the connected speaker(s)(ohm)), efficiency form both amp and cab(s), frequency-curve, your EQ settings, the acoustics of the hall you are playing including dips in the frequency-spectrum. Just to name a few ...

 

[Foz]

Percieved loudness of an amp seems to have more to do with "voicing", or what frequencies it emphasizes. The GK MB200 is really loud for 200 watts, because it doesn't waste a lot of energy reproducing boomy lows that tend to be pretty useless anyway.

Well that's true for those certain values of bass player I guess, but if you want to play bass just like those groovy guys on the records we all love then you'll need to be making some boom IME/IMO. Of course you don't need a magically voiced amp to do this - amps have knobs that are meant to be twisted and you can do that until your flute [or bass] sounds just as you like with as much or as little boom/nose-flute tonal character as you care to make. That said, if your lows are so boomy/distorted/farty as to be unsatisfying = you'd like to make some more lows, but rig can't do em justice - then you can of course, as you advise, simply give up the idea of playing lows and call sour grapes cause lows are "useless"- or you could get a rig that doesn't have these limitations - your opinion is appropriate for you obviously but as a bass player eschewing the lows does not appeal.

As to perceived "loudness" - it will always take a lot more energy from you amp and capability from your cab to be "loud" in the lows. There are several reasons for this fact including the physics/mechanics of making a high a amplitude wave that's 23' long [a 50 Hz wave] versus 1' long [a 1k Hz wave] - the way your ear lobe [pinna] acts more efficiently as an inverse wave guide on small waves versus long ones to get sound into your ear hole where it can do its dirty business - and psycho-acoustic factors [your brain pays a lot more attention to the screaming baby range of frequencies than ones arising from the rumbling of your mate's stomach].

 

[Foz]

Keep in mind that low frequency's eat lots more power than high frequency's.
So how loud an amp/cab combination is depends on: Power (watts, which depends on resistance from the connected speaker(s)(ohm)), efficiency form both amp and cab(s), frequency-curve, your EQ settings, the acoustics of the hall you are playing including dips in the frequency-spectrum. Just to name a few ...

+1

 

[will33]

Well that's true for those certain values of bass player I guess, but if you want to play bass just like those groovy guys on the records we all love then you'll need to be making some boom IME/IMO. Of course you don't need a magically voiced amp to do this - amps have knobs that are meant to be twisted and you can do that until your flute [or bass] sounds just as you like with as much or as little boom/nose-flute tonal character as you care to make. That said, if your lows are so boomy/distorted/farty as to be unsatisfying = you'd like to make some more lows, but rig can't do em justice - then you can of course, as you advise, simply give up the idea of playing lows and call sour grapes cause lows are "useless"- or you could get a rig that doesn't have these limitations - your opinion is appropriate for you obviously but as a bass player eschewing the lows does not appeal.

As to perceived "loudness" - it will always take a lot more energy from you amp and capability from your cab to be "loud" in the lows. There are several reasons for this fact including the physics/mechanics of making a high a amplitude wave that's 23' long [a 50 Hz wave] versus 1' long [a 1k Hz wave] - the way your ear lobe [pinna] acts more efficiently as an inverse wave guide on small waves versus long ones to get sound into your ear hole where it can do its dirty business - and psycho-acoustic factors [your brain pays a lot more attention to the screaming baby range of frequencies than ones arising from the rumbling of your mate's stomach].

Little known factoid: The brim-to-ear distance when wearing a 10-gallon hat creates an acoustic cancellation anomaly right in the screaming baby range.


Conclusion: Cowboy hats ain't just for show, those old-timers knew what they were doing.

 

[adi77]

the expression on the guitarist's face...

 

[Foz]

and the stains on his leotards