help with working out how much wattage i need!

[sky]

heyo, just wondering if anyone could help with working out sortof how much wattage would be good to go for, im looking for a lighter smaller amp that i can walk to rehearsals with, ive got an old sound city head which is awesome but the thing weighs like 50kg so obviously not particularly portable.
generally im playing through cabinets that arent mine, usually tend to be 4x10s, which seem to be around the 650 watt 8 ohm range.

ive seen a peavey minimega used that i might make an offer on, but with 1000w is that too much, i know thats the ohmage and wattage works out different and honestly it confuses me alot, but i just want to know before i send an offer would i find myself not being able to use it with alot of cabinets because its too many watts?
hopefully ive worded all that in a way that makes sense, any help will be appreciated!
cheers, leo

[PaulWarning]

they'll be more knowledgeable people than me along soon, but wattage is not a good way to know how loud something will go, I did used a Trace Elf 1 x 8 combo once, and that wasn't loud enough, but others have said the Elf's are with the right cab

[sky]

5 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

they'll be more knowledgeable people than me along soon, but wattage is not a good way to know how loud something will go, I did used a Trace Elf 1 x 8 combo once, and that wasn't loud enough, but others have said the Elf's are with the right cab

oh no im not worried about volume, more breaking other peoples speakers with an amp that shouldnt go with the cabinet

Edited 4 hours ago by sky

[warwickhunt]

Aside from anything else you have a dial on ALL amps that stops them destroying cabs... the volume control.  

 

A Bugatti Veyron can go 200mph but my 80 year old mother could drive it to the shops at 30mph.  You just don't press the loud pedal all the way to the floor.

[Mottlefeeder]

If your band has a drummer, then your target is to be loud enough to be heard alongside him/her.

If they can play quieter for rehearsals then one of the Elf/Gnome etc heads should be enough. If not, then you probably need the same wattage as your performance rig, and wear earplugs.

David

[sky]

9 minutes ago, Mottlefeeder said:

If your band has a drummer, then your target is to be loud enough to be heard alongside him/her.

If they can play quieter for rehearsals then one of the Elf/Gnome etc heads should be enough. If not, then you probably need the same wattage as your performance rig, and wear earplugs.

David

its doomy metal, so it gets semi loud for rehearsals ive found using a little tc electronic 250 watter i had to have it almost on full. my sound city head i never really get past half on the volume and thats only 120w but its valves so different obviously.

im guessing maybe id be ok with the peavey thing if i could get a decent deal on it if im not pushing the volume too high then, but i think i might hold out and wait for a 500w head to come up just so im not worrying about it. thanks for all the help!

Edited 4 hours ago by sky

[Lozz196]

That Peavey would probably have its power listed as something like 500/600 watts at 8ohms so would more than likely be safe, especially as I can`t see you needing to run it at full-pelt. 

[JGSpector]

Running into an 8 ohm cab that is rated at 600w won't be a problem with that amp because the 1000w power rating is at 4 ohms. So when running into an 8ohm load you roughly half the power rating of the amp. Regardless of that though, you can still blow any cab if you are over doing things like bass boost or running the amp flat out. As long as you use your ears you'll be fine. Might be worth looking at the TC Electronic heads too. A lot of people like them and they are very reasonably priced. I think they do an 800w model which might help ease your concerns about blowing other people's cabs a little as the amp would likely be running at around 400w into an 8 ohm load.

[PaulWarning]

aren't you more likely to damage a speaker by using and underpowered amp then running it at full power? asking for a friend

[Wombat]

The TC head will be Class D amp and the Sound City ‘old school’. A different class that someone more knowledgeable than me can explain.

 

Any ‘new’ (class D) amp will need to be several times the wattage of your SCs 120w to produce the same sort of power. There are lots of threads here explaining the ‘details’. For your particular problem I would have thought ‘more watts & turn down’ would be the way to go. But beware that you need to make sure bandmates don’t ’helpfully turn your rig up’ thus blowing a speaker.

[Wombat]

There is one for sale here with the bag to carry it around in.

 

i have the 450w version that is more than enough for my needs. I’m DI’d to the PA if we are playing a bigger venue…

 

TC RH 750

[JGSpector]

18 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

aren't you more likely to damage a speaker by using and underpowered amp then running it at full power? asking for a friend

I don't think so. If that were the case loads of us would be blowing cabs all over place. For example, someone running a Trace Elliot Elf into an 8 ohm cab rated at 400w is only using the Elf at its 8 ohm power rating of 130w. There are dozens of players who do that and i doubt any of them have blown their cabs doing so. I'm not a tech guy but my understanding is that the power rating of a cab is the maximum power it can take within its limitations. So running 2000w flat out into a cab rated at 400w probably wouldn't be the best idea in the world, but running an Elf into that same cab would be fine as the Elfs power rating is less than the maximum that the cab can take.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

41 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

aren't you more likely to damage a speaker by using and underpowered amp then running it at full power? asking for a friend

No. That's the myth of underpowering, which like Nessie and Robin Hood just won't go away.

[PaulWarning]

12 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

No. That's the myth of underpowering, which like Nessie and Robin Hood just won't go away.

as a resident of Nottingham I feel duty bound to say that Robin Hood is more likely to be true than Nessie, or blowing speakers by turning an amp up to distortion levels by the 'sounds' of it.

But hiding in the Major Oak or robbing from the rich to give to the poor probably as big a myth as the other two