What's the point of 100 watt amps?

[Eric***]

I should start this out by saying that I've only ever played through one 100W half stack: a H&K tri-amp or something like that. It was OK.

What I've been wondering about lately is what 100w amps are good for. Pretty much every amp I've ever owned has been too loud for me when I've turned it up to max -- if I ever even got there. I know sound is logarithmic or something, so that a doubling of volume requires 10x the wattage, but I guess I just don't understand the role of huge amps. Are they something you use when you want a lot of headroom? When you're playing outside and you don't have a powerful PA to mic the amp? When you want to feel your clothes flap around you? When you just want to feel like a rock star, playing in front of a huge amp?

I'm guessing the answer to the above questions is yes to all of them, but doing that would miss the point. I'm curious what the primary motivation is for using big amp heads. I notice a lot of pros use them, and a lot of the time they use three 100w amps (Mayer, Bonamassa, etc.). Certainly there must be some reason they use three amps, right? They're playing mostly venues with as much PA as they need, and oftentimes I think they even use isolation boxes, so what is it that those giant amps give you that little ones don't?

I think I've fleshed out this question enough by this point, so hopefully someone has some knowledge about it. Thanks!

[sunvalleylaw]

Not that I know for sure, but they used to be necessary before PA systems were used, for large concerts, etc. Nowadays, not sure they are necessary for anything. But they are part of the history of rock, so they live on.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

And some folks just like LOUD.

[Tig***]

So when it goes to 11, it ends the world.

[mapka]

I am sure there are many of Newbies out there that figure that more power means better. I have a 50W Marshall stack that I bought in the early 1990's. Back then there were lots of big rooms to play and the 50w was needed to fill them. Now small rooms only mean 30W max IMHO. Funny story about the Marshall.... Lent it to a friend who used it in a high school auditorium for a show he was doing with the kids. Had a pro sound man mixing. He had the amp up about half way and had to turn it down cause the sound man had everything else turned up so high to match it, it started to have all kinds of feedback. BTW the amp was not even mic'd!

[marnold***]

For guitar, that's all true. 100 watts will be overkill for most applications. Of course, that amph might sound awesome, so that's a reason to have one even if the power is unnecessary. Joe B. doesn't use all his amphs at the same time, much less at full blast. He also has plexiglass in front of his cab to keep the stage volume manageable.

Bass, on the other hand, requires a ton of wattage. 100 watts won't be enough even for a smallish venue, unless you're going into the pa system. I used to use a 50 watt combo, but I had the only electric instrument and the drummer showed restraint. We never played any place huge either.

When I tried to get a metal band together, you couldn't even tell I was there.

[Katastrophe]

Amphs started small, and wattage grew along with venue size for major acts. PA systems got louder, too, and folks started realizing that you could mike the amphs and keep stage volume to a minimum.

Jimi Hendrix had a couple of full size Marshall stacks on stage, and soon everyone wanted to look cool (like him) with those big stacks.

I remember in Austin in the early 90s EVERYONE that played rock had a half stack, even in some tiny clubs.

[Eric***]

Jimi Hendrix had a couple of full size Marshall stacks on stage, and soon everyone wanted to look cool (like him) with those big stacks.

This is my general impression of why people use huge amps, along with marnold's point about how sometimes the best-sounding amps just happen to be high-wattage.

However, I did see some interview with Joe Bonamassa once where he said amp manufacturers are always coming up to him, telling him he has to try out their latest 30 watt amp, and that he won't be able to tell the difference between it and a 100 watt amp. He goes on to say that he will be able to -- something like he'll take the Pepsi challenge and win. So that whole thing makes me think that there must be something about big amps that he specifically needs/wants, and that it's not just about the appearance on stage. Don't know. I could be wrong, but I guess I just feel like I might be missing something.

Maybe if I get some big-*** amp at the other end of the guitar cable sometime, I might understand. Maybe someday?

[Katastrophe]

One thing is cool, though, about a big amph through a 4x12 cab is the WHUMP. Turn that amph up, stand in front of the cab, and hit a power chord. The feeling when the sound hits you in the chest (the WHUMP, that's the best way I can describe it) is incredible. There really is nothing like it.

Of course, there really is nothing like tinnitus either, so I like my smaller amph.

[deeaa*]

One thing is cool, though, about a big amph through a 4x12 cab is the WHUMP. Turn that amph up, stand in front of the cab, and hit a power chord. The feeling when the sound hits you in the chest (the WHUMP, that's the best way I can describe it) is incredible. There really is nothing like it.

Exactly.

My Ceria can be halved 18/36W and the funny thing is, the 36W doesn't really sound any louder than 18W when played alone, BUT when I drop it to 18W, I just lose the bass punch and it won't cut thru the band no more.

4 me the 36W is quite perfect, the volume is just right for a loud drummer/band on almost full blast, at the point after which it starts getting ugly overtones already. But I would not mind a 50W or 100W amp for leads; I can't quite get a sufficiently clean and powerful sound I'd want for single strings with the 36W, because there is simply too much power tube distortion going on already.

Any amp, to me, should have at least 3 channels; cleaner, a dirty channel and a REALLY loud lead channel. Sadly, usually the lead channel just means more saturation which sucks. I like to play leads on a sound that is often cleaner than my rhythm sound, and it's a problem to get those to push thru the rest of the band, unless there's plenty of power in the amp.

Thus the need for 100W amps is in that sometimes less just won't do...with a loud band 50W will certainly be enough, but going for 100W will only add some more punch and headroom even at the same volume - if that's what you like. For very clean, unsaturared sounds LOUD you do need all the wattage you can get. At least something like 400W for clean clean bass sounds, and 100W is just perfect for a really punchy metal guitar sound that oesn't rely on power tube drive at all.

Furthermore, the usual speaker wattage is 75-120W still, making the classic Marshall 4x12" cab rated at about 400W, and it simply won't 'open up' with a lesser amp. I had a 60W Peavey tube amp and believe it or not, it failed to really open up the basic Marshall JCM800 cab when I used it in a studio! Hooked up a 100W JCM series and the speakers came alive.

So wattage can be a bit like horsepower. A farm tractor needs very little horsepower really with its low gears(have you ever checked out, they can be like under 100hp easily), but there's a whole different sound and feeling blasting a 400hp hemi truck, even if it can't pull even as much weight as the farm tractor....

[Eric***]

Exactly.

My Ceria can be halved 18/36W and the funny thing is, the 36W doesn't really sound any louder than 18W when played alone, BUT when I drop it to 18W, I just lose the bass punch and it won't cut thru the band no more.

4 me the 36W is quite perfect, the volume is just right for a loud drummer/band on almost full blast, at the point after which it starts getting ugly overtones already. But I would not mind a 50W or 100W amp for leads; I can't quite get a sufficiently clean and powerful sound I'd want for single strings with the 36W, because there is simply too much power tube distortion going on already.

Any amp, to me, should have at least 3 channels; cleaner, a dirty channel and a REALLY loud lead channel. Sadly, usually the lead channel just means more saturation which sucks. I like to play leads on a sound that is often cleaner than my rhythm sound, and it's a problem to get those to push thru the rest of the band, unless there's plenty of power in the amp.

Thus the need for 100W amps is in that sometimes less just won't do...with a loud band 50W will certainly be enough, but going for 100W will only add some more punch and headroom even at the same volume - if that's what you like. For very clean, unsaturared sounds LOUD you do need all the wattage you can get. At least something like 400W for clean clean bass sounds, and 100W is just perfect for a really punchy metal guitar sound that oesn't rely on power tube drive at all.

Furthermore, the usual speaker wattage is 75-120W still, making the classic Marshall 4x12" cab rated at about 400W, and it simply won't 'open up' with a lesser amp. I had a 60W Peavey tube amp and believe it or not, it failed to really open up the basic Marshall JCM800 cab when I used it in a studio! Hooked up a 100W JCM series and the speakers came alive.

So wattage can be a bit like horsepower. A farm tractor needs very little horsepower really with its low gears(have you ever checked out, they can be like under 100hp easily), but there's a whole different sound and feeling blasting a 400hp hemi truck, even if it can't pull even as much weight as the farm tractor....

So what I'm getting from this is a few points:

1. If you want a clean lead sound that has enough punch to cut through when playing with a band, you'll need the added power.
2. The sound/feel of playing a big amp is cool.
3. Sometimes you need the extra power just to drive the speakers and have them sound good.
4. The whole thing is predicated on playing with a band and without any extra monitoring to boost your amp volume

I think the key for me is point 4, maybe a little bit of 3. I assume that if you have a PA set up, you'll just run through that to normalize the volumes. I guess a big amp might be warranted if you're not micing the amps through the PA and you want some extra headroom. I think.

Did I miss anything? You had a lot of points in there.

[bigoldron]

One thing is cool, though, about a big amph through a 4x12 cab is the WHUMP. Turn that amph up, stand in front of the cab, and hit a power chord. The feeling when the sound hits you in the chest (the WHUMP, that's the best way I can describe it) is incredible. There really is nothing like it.

Of course, there really is nothing like tinnitus either, so I like my smaller amph.

+1

[Tig***]

Back in the late 70's and onward, bands like Van Halen as well as most hard rock/metal bands would put up a giant wall of amps and full stack cab's. As teens, we thought is was real.


Sadly, bands like Slayer still do it.


I'm not sure who this is, but it is pathetic:

[Eric***]

I'm not sure who this is, but it is pathetic:

I originally saw that photo over at The Gear Page. I think they concluded it was the band Immortal.

On that note, when I saw Dream Theater, Petrucci had something like 3 full stacks of mesa dual rectifiers. My friend later said that they're all fake, and that he keeps one behind them that's actually mic'ed up. So I guess it's something that's not too uncommon.

[NWBasser]

The purpose of 100 watt amps is to piss off bass players.

[Duffy]

That explains a lot, Chojin, in terms that the average person can understand. I had no idea that the response of the ear to the frequencies of sound, and the SPL too I suppose, has such an affect on the sound we perceive; as opposed, I guess to the actual sound wave pattern generated by the amp and speaker and pushed thru the air. It sounds like what we hear is regulated by our human condition; and this seems to me to suggest why dogs, for instance, can hear things we cannot hear and can also hear things way "before" we hear them. The condition of being a dog bears with it an ability to perceive sound, as it moves thru the air, differently from us because their ears respond to sound differently from our ears do. Is this why dogs will often howl in response to a fire siren, while we respond to it passively?

Our sensory perception as humans, in this case the perception of sound waves, is seemingly limitted to only part of the full spectrum of sound wave frequencies and wavelengths in nature or the physical world. I am aware somewhat of that, just like our eyes perceive only a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum - visible light. But the graphic representation of what our ears actually perceive as the volume of sound waves must form a curve on an x/y graph where the steadily increasing volume of a frequency is a straight line on the graph. And furthermore, from your description, the curve on the graph representing the volume our ears perceive must be a differently shaped curve for all frequencies as the volume of that frequency is increased.

Or something like this if represented in a graph where the volume of a frequency increases linearly on a graph and is represented on the graph as a straight line.

This phenomenon must have been a great mystery to early sound engineers or the predecesors of sound engineers, and must have been difficult to explain until the science of human hearing had been developed. Experts in the arts and science of sound must have been aware of this phenomonon long before it could be definitively explained and their theories validated.

A lot of us are still unaware of these principles, but dudes playing in bands, especially loud bands, figured out quite unscientifically that more powerful amps produced bass sounds more satisfying to the ear.

Is this similar, in a sense, to why deep bass woodwind instruments tend to be huge; such as in huge bass or baritone saxiphones? And in the case of drums, the need for a large bass drum instead of just tuning down a smaller tom for instance?

Why someone would need a 100 watt amp has turned out to have a lot more to it than I would have casually thought. Excellent thread.

[NWBasser]

Is this similar, in a sense, to why deep bass woodwind instruments tend to be huge; such as in huge bass or baritone saxiphones? And in the case of drums, the need for a large bass drum instead of just tuning down a smaller tom for instance?

Further examples would include jumbo acoustic guitars and of course the double bass!

One aspect that hasn't really been addressed though is how a thumpy and bassy guitar sound affects the whole band mix. In my experience, some awesome tones that sound great on their own can be disastrous in a band setting with other instruments. For example, a mid-scooped bass tone sounds sweet on its own but is a cloak of sonic invisibilty when put into a band context.

[Eric***]

One aspect that hasn't really been addressed though is how a thumpy and bassy guitar sound affects the whole band mix. In my experience, some awesome tones that sound great on their own can be disastrous in a band setting with other instruments. For example, a mid-scooped bass tone sounds sweet on its own but is a cloak of sonic invisibilty when put into a band context.

I was also wondering about why bass can be muddy, which might be part of that same discussion. I used to own a 50w Crate amp where it was bass all over the place unless you turned the EQ knob off completely, but it was wild and boomy bass -- not something I'd want in a band or even on my own.

[NWBasser]

I was also wondering about why bass can be muddy, which might be part of that same discussion. I used to own a 50w Crate amp where it was bass all over the place unless you turned the EQ knob off completely, but it was wild and boomy bass -- not something I'd want in a band or even on my own.

My experience with Crate bass amps is that they're not very well voiced (being polite here).

However, the boomines that you describe may well be the result of boundary effects in the room.

Bass can be a female dog to EQ and amplify correctly due to standing waves, reflections, phase cancellations....