Who really needs 100w amps ?

Plectrum

100 watts? Not me. I do a have friend though who's been pro for over 40 years. Just before last Christmas I briefly bumped into him in the pub and the conversation was basically "just ordered a new rig - a 400 watt custom head from Blackstar (16 x EL34s). Got to run in a minute as I'm off to Woody's Christmas party" (how the other half live LOL). I still have no idea why he wants to run so much power but every time I've seen him this year, he's been complaining that his hearing is getting worse. One wonders why ...

ennspek

Nobody needs 100 watts these days. You are allowed to like 100 watts though.

ChrisCox1994

Outside big festival stages. Been lucky enough to play a couple with fully cranked 60s ac30s, my red plate 50w and my deluxe reverb 22..

On a stage of that size (5000 or so crowd) the ac30s at full was hardly audible more than 3m off axis. Made me think about double stack marshalls and 100 watt heads. Must be a joyful thing.

Redplate same thing but even less audible due to 112 speaker, deluxe I couldn't even hear in front of it..

Sassafras

monquixote said:

It's the same reason you don't drive a car with a top speed of 70mph.

I had a car that would struggle to hit 70mph.
It's "sweet spot" was around 35 to 40mph.
It was an old Lada if anyone's interested.

Jetsam1

Sassafras said:

monquixote said:

It's the same reason you don't drive a car with a top speed of 70mph.

I had a car that would struggle to hit 70mph.
It's "sweet spot" was around 35 to 40mph.
It was an old Lada if anyone's interested.

Oi! I may be going for a Lada soon! Nothing else petrol and can be had as a pick up truck......... But still. Come to Eastern Europe and see loads of them still about........

Sassafras

Jetsam1 said:

Sassafras said:

monquixote said:

It's the same reason you don't drive a car with a top speed of 70mph.

I had a car that would struggle to hit 70mph.
It's "sweet spot" was around 35 to 40mph.
It was an old Lada if anyone's interested.

Oi! I may be going for a Lada soon! Nothing else petrol and can be had as a pick up truck......... But still. Come to Eastern Europe and see loads of them still about........

Yes, but they're probably far better maintained than my old banger ever was.
It did have a sort of agricultural charm though.

ICBM

Sassafras said:

monquixote said:

It's the same reason you don't drive a car with a top speed of 70mph.

I had a car that would struggle to hit 70mph.
It's "sweet spot" was around 35 to 40mph.
It was an old Lada if anyone's interested.

So did I! A Citroën 2CV. Top speed on the flat, 70mph. The best speed was around 45-55, they would bowl along quite happily at that - but virtually no useful acceleration above that, the speed would just gradually creep up. That made overtaking 56mph lorries on the motorway a real bind, quite often - especially as when you pulled out to overtake you'd run straight into the 'bow wave' and it would cut the speed to 55mph… just no power in reserve.

I did once meet a chap at a car show who genuinely owned a Ferrari and was interested in buying a 2CV though - because he would be able to drive it flat-out without breaking the law. A rock guitarist, no doubt .

ToneControl

ICBM said:

siraxeman said:

...that's headroom then right ? We like our valves to be pushed hard - that's the magic sound many of us go for...its harder to get that effect with 100w amps, plus you have to pay twice as much for a revalve!

No we don't. We like them to not be pushed hard, so when we want a *clean* sound - which means absolutely not clipping at all - with lots of power- and bandwidth-hungry effects on it, it stays clean. We also like clipped-clean sounds, which can easily be done with preamp distortion while the power amp stays properly clean. And we like heavily-distorted sounds, which again can be done with the preamp and a clean power amp.

The difference is that you can get all of those sounds from an amp which is powerful enough that the power stage never distorts, whereas you can't from one which isn't.

monquixote said:

It's the same reason you don't drive a car with a top speed of 70mph.

This is what puzzles me. It's pretty much *only* rock guitarists who don't seem to be able to understand that.

You were around too, you  remember all that 80s mantra about  needing to  get your OD from the power stages. Some people  never learned any new theories after that i assume.  I have heard some  disgusting OD from many power stages, you will have heard even more

The pedals now  available are as subtle or as brutal as you like, and can  cover  the bulk of attractive tones, so a clear  amp that can handle transients is a wonderful thing

For years my go-to amp for this was a Fender  Twin  Reverb II (The Paul Rivera one)
However, after getting an ultra-clean Dumble clone Ceriatone HRM 100, expertly assembled by Martin of this parish, accompanied by a wonderful EVM12,  the Twin II was sold.

The transients  on this amp are wonderful, no room for  sloppy playing,  there's no sag.
I'm guessing it's close the the SRV SSS  feel

Sassafras

ICBM said:

So did I! A Citroën 2CV. Top speed on the flat, 70mph. The best speed was around 45-55, they would bowl along quite happily at that - but virtually no useful acceleration above that, the speed would just gradually creep up. That made overtaking 56mph lorries on the motorway a real bind, quite often - especially as when you pulled out to overtake you'd run straight into the 'bow wave' and it would cut the speed to 55mph… just no power in reserve.

I did once meet a chap at a car show who genuinely owned a Ferrari and was interested in buying a 2CV though - because he would be able to drive it flat-out without breaking the law. A rock guitarist, no doubt .

The difference there is that the 2CV is iconic whereas my Lada was diabolic.

pintspiller

I used the excuse of playing bass in a blues band a few years ago to get my first 100w amp. A Marshall of course. Got my amp guy to do a mod to make it bass-friendly (it is a MkII Super lead) - treble cap bypass or something. 

At rehearsals it didn't seem louder than my Sound City to be honest. I never got invited back to rehearsals after the Xmas break. LOL 

Lew

Hmmmm ya don't have to turn 'em up all the way up ya know? ;-)

thomasross20

The way things worked out for me, I ended up with just an HT5 and HT20. A good thing as I'm no longer gigging!  
In any case, the HT5 is perfect. Small, light & portable, cheap, versatile and I'd be more than happy having two and mic'ing it up. Probably should have left the HT20... but the master volume makes it much more suitable for home playing.

cosmiccarrot

ICBM said:

cosmiccarrot said:

The sound from that 100 watt plexi on Van Halen's first album was pure power section drive (no master volume mods) coupled with a variac to ad compression and 'hair' to the distortion, and this was all done with just three pre amp valves!

Well… and being boosted by an MXR graphic EQ, and having an extremely dangerous - not to mention power-valve-destroying - internal 'cross line' load fitted to it. The Variac was actually first introduced to stop it going through power valves at quite the same rate, according to his tech - and contrary to what he claimed, was turned *down*, not up.

The mxr did play a part in evh's live rig, which from '78 on consisted of a 3 amp set up, as to how much of the first album was recorded with it is unknown, some songs do have more distortion than others. One thing that was an added boost and was always on in the signal chain was the echoplex ep3, which ads a little boost and darkness to the tone.

To date, there's no evidence that he did use a load with his amp (much later yes) just a stock 68 sl. The 'constant valve changing' is a bit of hearsay imo, (Rudy L does mention it but in a live application) usually brought about when the use of a variac is mentioned along with fried PT's etc., which as you say was wrongly informed by Ed in a late 70's interview but was soon discovered he meant the other way round. The variac came about when Ed was first starting in his club gigs, he bought a marshall that was UK powered and plugged it straight in to the wall and liked the sound. Prior to this Ed had stated in an early interview that he liked the sound he got when he switched off his very first fender amp and struck a chord as the signal died, something he then said he went on to experiment with light dimmers.

ecc83

A 400W Blackstar? Wish I was still there to see that! Mind you I struggled to get a 200W Series One on the bench, can't see me lifting a 400watter!"

Anyhoos, assuming it is not a wind up, I would have thought 8X KT88 would have been a more practical valve line up? TBH at those sort of power levels I would have thought a "studio grade" solid state amp was much more practical? As ICBM said, you don't WANT the dirt.

Dave.

ecc83

http://hblstore.co.uk/crown-200w-per-channel-power-amp-xli800.html

Could not buy a set of 16 decent EL34s for that leave alone 8 88s!

Dave.

ToneControl

cosmiccarrot said:

ICBM said:

cosmiccarrot said:

The sound from that 100 watt plexi on Van Halen's first album was pure power section drive (no master volume mods) coupled with a variac to ad compression and 'hair' to the distortion, and this was all done with just three pre amp valves!

Well… and being boosted by an MXR graphic EQ, and having an extremely dangerous - not to mention power-valve-destroying - internal 'cross line' load fitted to it. The Variac was actually first introduced to stop it going through power valves at quite the same rate, according to his tech - and contrary to what he claimed, was turned *down*, not up.

The mxr did play a part in evh's live rig, which from '78 on consisted of a 3 amp set up, as to how much of the first album was recorded with it is unknown, some songs do have more distortion than others. One thing that was an added boost and was always on in the signal chain was the echoplex ep3, which ads a little boost and darkness to the tone.

To date, there's no evidence that he did use a load with his amp (much later yes) just a stock 68 sl. The 'constant valve changing' is a bit of hearsay imo, (Rudy L does mention it but in a live application) usually brought about when the use of a variac is mentioned along with fried PT's etc., which as you say was wrongly informed by Ed in a late 70's interview but was soon discovered he meant the other way round. The variac came about when Ed was first starting in his club gigs, he bought a marshall that was UK powered and plugged it straight in to the wall and liked the sound. Prior to this Ed had stated in an early interview that he liked the sound he got when he switched off his very first fender amp and struck a chord as the signal died, something he then said he went on to experiment with light dimmers.

Would an 240v-configured amp even function at 110v/120v ??
surely not?

Plectrum

ecc83 said:

A 400W Blackstar? Wish I was still there to see that! Mind you I struggled to get a 200W Series One on the bench, can't see me lifting a 400watter!"

Anyhoos, assuming it is not a wind up, I would have thought 8X KT88 would have been a more practical valve line up? TBH at those sort of power levels I would have thought a "studio grade" solid state amp was much more practical? As ICBM said, you don't WANT the dirt.

Dave.

It's not a wind up. He told me it was a custom build. Apparently they'd built one for some famous-in-the-80s rock band. He did say which one but I can't remember who it was (for me the 80s was the nadir of popular music and I went to great lengths to avoid most of it. But I digress ) Luckily for him, he doesn't have to lift the thing as he has other people to do that. I still don't understand why wanted the thing though. The venues he plays will all have really good PA systems and I assume a competent sound engineer.

ICBM

cosmiccarrot said:

To date, there's no evidence that he did use a load with his amp (much later yes) just a stock 68 sl.

There's a studio photo from the very early days showing the load components hanging out of the back of the amp.

ToneControl said:

Would an 240v-configured amp even function at 110v/120v ??
surely not?

No. You need about 180V on a 240V amp before it will actually work, usually.

Whatever he used and however he did it, it certainly wasn't a stock 100W Marshall and the way he played, as often claimed. If it was, people wouldn't be still failing to reproduce that sound more than thirty years later.

impmann

Do you mean this one...

ToneControl

impmann said:

Do you mean this one...

http://wwwc.dcns.ne.jp/~epi/witnesses.html
no idea if this is accurate