Watts manufacturers doings to us - RMS vs Peak - it’s time to take a stand

[Cuzzie]

For too long now manufacturers  are treating us bassists like we have turds for brains.

I am sick of them not reporting their magical unicorn watts in a consistent format.

As a community we need clarity, we need to make manufacturers give us consistency for our fickle nature of gear changing every week without blowing our cabs or our ears.

3 parts to this.

Do we want Peak or RMS or both?

Lets name and shame those companies that don’t provide it.

I propose we start a petition, 10,000 signatures we get a response, 100,000 (signatures not watts) we can get it discussed in parliament.

Who is with me?!

[grandad]

Spoilsport!

What are we going to moan about then?

 

Edited November 15, 2018 by grandad

[BassBod]

My favourite is "music power" - can't remember who used it, but utterly meaningless...unless you work in the marketing dept. 

[grandad]

Watt I want to know is watt have all those foreign bass equipment manufacturers ever done for us?

[Muzz]

Ohhhh, 'music power'; I remember that one. High fives all round in the Marketing meeting, while the Engineering blokes put their heads in their hands... 🙂

[Stylon Pilson]

I disagree, Cuzzie. Even if manufacturers standardise on peak/RMS, there's still so many ways to fudge the numbers that it'll continue to be meaningless. If you're looking for the certainty that amp A having more watts than amp B means that it will be louder, then you'll forever be disappointed.

The only way to know how loud an amp goes, is to try it at a gig.

S.P.

[Muzz]

Ohhh, that's just 'loud'. What about 'heft'? 😀

[fleabag]

1 hour ago, BassBod said:

My favourite is "music power" - can't remember who used it, but utterly meaningless...unless you work in the marketing dept. 

Maybe Tandy ? Remember them ?

Utter  cheapness

[Muzz]

I'd already mentioned them (and Amstrad) in another thread...careful: if we say their name three times, they might come back... 😕🙂

 

[Osiris]

2 hours ago, Cuzzie said:

For too long now manufacturers  are treating us bassists like we have turds for brains.

What about those of us that have got turds for brains? 

[chris_b]

RMS is a standard that applies to amps and cabs. Apparently doesn't mean much due to the nature of power, sound and volume, but RMS is an indicator that seems to be understood by most. SPL works well for cabs, but not for amps.

I believe AES is the coming thing and a more accurate standard than RMS.

[mikel]

I may be miles out here but in the days of all valve amps were we not fairly sure of the power said amps would produce?  Then it was simply down to the number of cabs and speakers to produce the volume needed? As I say I am guessing but I recall most 100w amps back in the day being similar volume wise through say a 4 x 12 cab.

Edited November 15, 2018 by mikel
Spelling.

[PaulWarning]

I may be wrong but wasn't music power when they added together the 2 channels of peak power? i.e. 500,000 watts peak power per channel = 1 million watts music power

[Japhet]

While we're on the subject, what the hell does 'Programme' mean in this context?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

They only get away with what we let them. Reference the TC watts controversy, when TC was caught red handed flat out lying about their power specs. You'd think that universal condemnation would have followed, yet a substantial percentage of TC owners defended TC, saying in essence that they didn't care if they were lied to, so long as the amps sounded good.

[Daz39]

6 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

They only get away with what we let them. Reference the TC watts controversy, when TC was caught red handed flat out lying about their power specs. You'd think that universal condemnation would have followed, yet a substantial percentage of TC owners defended TC, saying in essence that they didn't care if they were lied to, so long as the amps sounded good.

That sounds suspiciously like current goings on with people who have now discovered the mess is really bad, but fingers in ears will not admit it - it's fine. I knew the cost - any cost is fine as long as I get what I think I want!!

Seriously though - there ought to be some form of decent comparison - you often try an amp in a shop at first polite and then a quick stab at noisy volume - but every amp can pretty much manage that and still sound ok. It's no use when you want to know how the sound will work at the sort of gig volumes you would need your Trace Amp turned up to 1.5 for...

 

[Muzz]

10 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

They only get away with what we let them. Reference the TC watts controversy, when TC was caught red handed flat out lying about their power specs. You'd think that universal condemnation would have followed, yet a substantial percentage of TC owners defended TC, saying in essence that they didn't care if they were lied to, so long as the amps sounded good.

I've been surprised at the easy ride Trickfish have had with regard to RMS/Peak power claims and the car crash that is their specs for the 1k and .5k amps, and the somewhat, erm, creative naming of them...

[dyerseve]

4 hours ago, BassBod said:

My favourite is "music power" - can't remember who used it, but utterly meaningless...unless you work in the marketing dept. 

I remember a similar thing in Australia when I did my work experience at an electrical retailers - they advertised their hifis with a ridiculously high PMPO(Peak Music Power Output) figure - completely meaningless!!!

I believe RMS power output figures are perfectly accurate and consistent as long as they are specified within the context of load (ohms) and distortion figures at said load(THD % - Total Harmonic Distortion)

[Mottlefeeder]

59 minutes ago, dyerseve said:

... I believe RMS power output figures are perfectly accurate and consistent as long as they are specified within the context of load (ohms) and distortion figures at said load(THD % - Total Harmonic Distortion)

I agree with the comments about load and distortion, but most users will never use continous high power, so the larger an amp, the less relevant RMS power becomes.

If the ratio of bass peaks to bass average signal is about eight to one [citation needed here], then specifying RMS power will cover you if you want to play a continuous synth or organ bass note, but for any other meaningful bass line you will be paying a lot of money for a high-powered, RMS, 24/7 rated system whose capabilities you will never use.

Surely what we need is a measurement that covers both continuous power and higher powers for a defined proportion of the time. For example, 300W RMS 24/7 and 500W RMS for 10 seconds in every minute and 250 W RMS for the remaining 50 seconds. If we specify the right proportions of intermittent and continuous power right then we should be able to ensure that bass amplifiers have enough reserves in their power supplies to provide the heft we crave while not being priced out of our reach.

David

[chris_b]

1 hour ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

. . . . yet a substantial percentage of TC owners defended TC, saying in essence that they didn't care if they were lied to, so long as the amps sounded good.

You say that as if what an amp sounds like doesn't matter!

The loudest noise and most condemnation came from people who had never seen or heard a TC amp. Sadly, what TC didn't say was their amp was equivalent to a 500 watt amp etc. If they'd done that then there wouldn't have been a problem. The assumption most of the people who joined in to the Talkbass thread made was that a 246 watt amp couldn't possibly be as loud as any one else's 500 watt amp. If these people had used their ears rather than what ever else they were using they would have heard 250 watts sounding as loud as 500 watts. The mature response should have been, how are they doing that? Unfortunately the subject quickly descended into abuse and got nowhere. It's still getting nowhere.

[Happy Jack]

Were TC the people who cheated on the particulate emissions test?

 

[grandad]

There are 2 things going on:

1. objective and quantifiable measurements under agreed conditions resulting in a quantity/units

&

2. what each individual person's ears will hear under a variety of conditions.

Edited November 16, 2018 by grandad
clarity

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

2 hours ago, chris_b said:

The assumption most of the people who joined in to the Talkbass thread made was that a 246 watt amp couldn't possibly be as loud as any one else's 500 watt amp.

What about valve amps? I fully understand how the use of compression can give the subjective impression of one amp being louder than another of the same rated power. That's what valves do. That's not the point. False advertising is.

[dyerseve]

2 hours ago, chris_b said:

You say that as if what an amp sounds like doesn't matter!

The loudest noise and most condemnation came from people who had never seen or heard a TC amp. Sadly, what TC didn't say was their amp was equivalent to a 500 watt amp etc. If they'd done that then there wouldn't have been a problem. The assumption most of the people who joined in to the Talkbass thread made was that a 246 watt amp couldn't possibly be as loud as any one else's 500 watt amp. If these people had used their ears rather than what ever else they were using they would have heard 250 watts sounding as loud as 500 watts. The mature response should have been, how are they doing that? Unfortunately the subject quickly descended into abuse and got nowhere. It's still getting nowhere.

It doesn't matter. Because it's not in the amps specification.

People, especially nowadays with so much online retail, will often buy site unseen and will bass their purchases on specification provided by the manufacturer. If this spec is not accurate then they have every right to feel agreaved.

Subjectivity has no place in specifications.

[dyerseve]

2 hours ago, Mottlefeeder said:

I agree with the comments about load and distortion, but most users will never use continous high power, so the larger an amp, the less relevant RMS power becomes.

If the ratio of bass peaks to bass average signal is about eight to one [citation needed here], then specifying RMS power will cover you if you want to play a continuous synth or organ bass note, but for any other meaningful bass line you will be paying a lot of money for a high-powered, RMS, 24/7 rated system whose capabilities you will never use.

Surely what we need is a measurement that covers both continuous power and higher powers for a defined proportion of the time. For example, 300W RMS 24/7 and 500W RMS for 10 seconds in every minute and 250 W RMS for the remaining 50 seconds. If we specify the right proportions of intermittent and continuous power right then we should be able to ensure that bass amplifiers have enough reserves in their power supplies to provide the heft we crave while not being priced out of our reach.

David

I think that would potentially complicate things as again you would need to clearly define all of the parameters of those results and the testing conditions they were performed under.

RMS is already a standard measure for amp output so I think it would be better to tweak the existing std so all manufacturers report their amps outputs under the same parameters. Especially helpful would be to show the amps output and how it varied into differing loads as obviously a Class A amp will perform very differently to a Class D and so on and so on.

I think it would also help if the general amp buying public were given more info on matching amps to cabs and how reduced impedance impacted the amps output, how speaker sensitivity factors into SPL but also how it relates to watts required etc etc.

I am no expert on it but from my hobby fiddling with HiFi I know enough to know that a lot of people know very little about it and can't help but think that would potentially also apply in the amp and cab buying public as well. Hopefully I am wrong though.