How much wattage?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zinc
  • Start date Start date
Z

Zinc

New member
Hey all- I'm looking to go rackmount from my 100w ampeg tube head. I play it through a 4x12 sovtek cab. What I would be using is primarily a rocktron voodu valve as a preamp and then either a velocity 120 or 250 for a power amp. I really don't understand ohms too much, so I guess my question is can I play 250 watts through a 4x12 cab at 8ohms without blowing the speakers out? Isn't that way too much juice? But, will the 120 be enough juice?
It needs to be loud... I play hardcore/metal(no, not korn or nu-metal crap)
 
Real musicians don't give a damn about that teknikal shit! Real musicains are too busy servicing groupies and creating new music.
 
Why do you need 250watts for your guitar? Are you playing large venues or do you need that much power to keep your clean sound from distorting at high volumes? Or am I getting old? That seems like a lot of power for night club and bar gigs--even for metal........but what do I know, I play vintage stuff thru a '54 tweed deluxe and I dail in my tone and mic it. .......... to answer the question----it deppends. What is your output to the cabs rated for - not in watts but ohms. Also, what is the individual impedence of the speaker in the cab and/or how are they wired together? How they are wired determines the total impedence of the cab. What is the wattage rating of your speakers? But before you go get an electrical engineering degree to figure it all out-----it boils down to this----The idea is to distribute equal amounts of power to each speaker with overloading them........so if you think you are going to need 250 watts you should buy more speakers. But I think 100 watts or so is plenty of juice.....remember this, you are using a tube amp head. Power tubes need to saturated to give you the best tone which in turn means turning up the amp to near full volume. We guitar players tend to have inflated egos love to be the center of attention--sometimes by being the loudest instrument in the group--but you don't want to dail in your perfect tone and be way louder than the other instruments and vocals. Yeah sure you sound good but nobody else can be heard and that make the band sound like crap. So yeah there is such a thing as too loud--even for metal.
 
I guess I need to elaborate a little. My cab is 8 ohms. I have no idea how the individual speakers are rated or wired, but it shouldn't matter if I know that the total is 8 ohms.
The confusion lies in the specs on the two amps. The v-120 says at 8 ohms it is 50 watts per channel. Bridged is 120. The v-250 is 90watts per channel at 8 ohms. I'm not going to be in stereo or anything, so what does this all mean? I don't see how I would ever be pushing a true 250w out of these things...
Also, how does a 100w of tube amp compare to 50w of solid state power amp?
Thanks
 
Green -back Celestions are 40 watts @.The EV 12L is 250 watts.So you see it varies a lot.

Tom
 
If its 8 ohms and your power amp mathces then it boils down to the RMS wattage rating of a reputable speaker. I dont trust to many speaker companies ratings.
Also the addition of more speakers eases the work of each cone excursion of the speakers involved lessening the chance of frying the voice coils, the power is sort of distributed over each speaker, the more the merrier, I think, therefore I am prone to error. I usually dont know what I am talking about so you can take all of this with a grain of salt. When adding speakers be careful to keep ohm rating the same. 2 8 ohm in seiries=16 ohms
2 8 ohms in paralell=4 ohms. 4 8 ohm speakers with 2 wired in paralell and the other two wired in paralell, then those two pair wired in series will produce 8 ohms which is the setup for 4x12 cabinets, thats my story and Im sticking to it I think.
As far as the amps go, the bridgeable one is the one to use to get more power since you are not using stereo. For an amp to be stereo it needs two amps, if the two amps are bridgable you derive more power in mono, if not then you are stuck using one channel of the stereo at whatever rating it is per channel. One other thing, if the rating is not in RMS then it is not a true rating and is misleading.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top