Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Found this article at the Mack Amps website to be quite informative, even if you may not necessarily agree with all of his conclusions. The point about "the cleaner you play, the more power you need" is a good one, and not necessarily the way many guitarists tend to think.

Link: http://www.mackamps.com/articles-mack-a ... o-i-need-/

I would tend to agree that there is such a thing as having too much amp power. I had an old Ampeg VT-22 that was like 125 watts and I could never turn it past 3 without vaporizing everything in front of it. However, after playing a gig last weekend with 2 keyboards, a B-3, bass/drums, horn section, string section, 10-person choir, standing in front of a large floor monitor with nothing coming through it but vocals, I was really wishing I had something bigger than my little ol' 15 watt combo amp. 40 or 50 watts into a 4x12 cab sounds just about right to me. Actually 30-ish would probably be about right. . . . :-/

The demos on the Mack site sound pretty nice. I wonder how the Character switching works on their HS-18?

I've always thought that the 20-30 watt range was plenty. Good to see someone on the internet agrees with me. I am a firm believer that if you are playing a bar you have to play at a reasonable volume. If you are playing a larger venue you will have monitors. Same amp works in both situations.

I don't know why amp power is an issue, I've heard this discussion a lot however I tend to buy an amp based on whether I like the way it sounds
I've got lots of amps for different things some with massive amounts of power and some with barely any.
but I never bought them on what power it had, only on whether it sounded the way I wanted it to.

I really feel people get too hung up on details and end up missing the point.

Keep in mind that they're talking about tube amps. These tend to put out more power than rated in comparison to solid state amps because of different harmonic distortion specs. I totally agree with them - even my 15W tube amp is loud enough for most occasions.

Having said that, I also use a 100W solid state amp for my rack effects and it barely keeps up with the 15W tube amp as far as perceived volume is concerned. I use a 6-10x factor when comparing the two technologies.

I tend to agree with much of the article. I remember my first venture into tube amps was a Mesa F-30. I was already playing a Fender CyberTwin at 120 (SS) watts so I figured 30 would be great for the bedroom.

Found out that 30 was WAAAAAAAAAAYYYY to loud for the bedroom. I bought an attenuator and then sold them both in about 1 year.

I had a similar experience with a 30W Peavey Delta Blues. Ear-bleedingly loud in the small room where I do most of my playing.

Good practical advice.

Really, a bigger amp feels different. The volume is not the issue.

This is a great article! I love my ac30...but it's blistering loud in the sweet spot...it's nearly useless to me at this point in my life.

I actually don't know how people play at the volume they do. After a certain volume I can't even make out the notes.

In my playing space, I can hit that ear bleeding volume where the tin bells ring in the eardrums with my 5W valve jr. Course I have so little space that I have to play within a foot or so of the speaker. Ask powerpopguy - two people in that room is mighty uncomfortable haha.

If the writer were a little more specific about the different types of distortion, I'd agree to an extent, but as written, he's only really talking power amp distortion in the context of classic rock music. As a counter example to most of his points, metal players, easily some of the most distorted players out there, rely on a very clean power amp to keep their sound tight. This in turn requires things like 100w amps as the norm. Once players start to approach their amp as an instrument, technical details like wattage stop making a whole lot of sense. 5 watt vs 150 watt is about as interesting a discussion as single coil vs active humblers at 18v. Different applications, different tools, all right, no rules.

Like my beloved Fender Twin they are also both backbreakingly heavy. I'd love to have an AC-30. But not until I start playing really large venues and have an army of roadies to break their backs instead.

Interestingly I learned that Ritchie Blackmore used 200 watt Marshalls fully cranked with built in treble boosters and with the pre-amp of his Aywa delay also pushing those monsters. No wonder he played so close to the audience as he did during the California Jam. Best to put some distance between him and those monsters.

Why did Eric have to sit on your lap?