Budget Amps

[Lew-Bass]

After all this, I've decided that I'm going to buy a head now (s/h for upto/around £170) and a cab/cabs (s/h for around £150 sound reasonable?) in about 2 months time.
Thanks for all your help, great to feel welcome

[josh3184]

not to worry man, any time!

[Lew-Bass]

PM'd you Josh

[alexclaber]

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='400372' date='Feb 4 2009, 08:09 PM']Surely that is a contradiction Alex?

You of all people surely accept that the measurement of a watt is a scientific equation;

Hence a valve watt can be no different to a tranny watt... yes?[/quote]

No contradiction at all. I clearly stated that a valve watt is no more powerful than a solidstate watt, which is true. I also stated that a valve watt is louder than a solidstate watt. Loudness is not a measurement of acoustic power, it is how humans perceive acoustic power and the relationship between acoustic power and loudness is not constant, varying with frequency as shown by the Fletcher-Munson curve (midrange is much louder than lows), with crest factor (ratio of peak to average signal level - lower crest factor is louder for a given peak level) and with distortion (more distortion is louder).

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='400417' date='Feb 4 2009, 08:58 PM']Valid point, I was simply responding to the statement that watt A is louder than watt B.

Just as Alex would dive in (rightly so) and nip in the bud any misconception that certain speakers can defy the laws of physics, I think 'facts' need to be just that, otherwise we just perpetrate the same myths time and again. I've known SS amps of certain wattages 'appear' louder than other SS amps either by dint of the manufacturer (cough... TE) manipulating the gains to make them seem to have masses of volume at low settings and others (cough... GK) with things like boost stages and though I can't 'prove' it, some manufactures appear to just make figures up. [/quote]

I totally agree that facts need to be facts but this sadly isn't a fact. Gain staging which tends to get you full power earlier on the knobs doesn't have any bearing on loudness vs power. However an amp with more midrange, less bottom, nicer overdrive, better limiting, more compression will sound louder with the same watts as an amp which is flat in response, low distortion, makes nasty sounds when it overdrives and doesn't have good limiters. Hence GK amps tend to sound loud for their rating whilst EA amps tend to sound quite quiet.

Something else that should be borne in mind is that most amps are rated when driving a resistive load in a lab. When driving the reactive load that is a loudspeaker cabinet although both amps can produce the same max voltage (and sustain the appropriate current in phase into a resistive load) one of the amps could have a much better ability to deliver current out of phase without its voltage rails sagging, and thus in the real world will actually be more powerful. (Note I said more powerful, not merely louder).

Alex

[waynepunkdude]

I'm going to just +1 Peavey cheap, loud and bullet proof.

[OldGit]

[quote name='Lew-Bass' post='400588' date='Feb 5 2009, 12:40 AM']After all this, I've decided that I'm going to buy a head now (s/h for upto/around £170) and a cab/cabs (s/h for around £150 sound reasonable?) in about 2 months time.
Thanks for all your help, great to feel welcome [/quote]


Your neighbours will thank you .... for 2 months anyway ..


All this talk of valve amps .. If anyone can find a real life giggable all valve solution for the Op's budget please tell us where

[OldGit]

[quote name='josh3184' post='400217' date='Feb 4 2009, 05:41 PM']This, helluva reply![/quote]


I try