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"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Warp, although Wasp would be more accurate .
Someone at Carlsbro thought it was a good idea to call a couple of their 80s amps the Wasp and the Hornet as well...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
It's not intended to output a continuous 100w square wave so it's probably fine.
This is one of the main reasons modern amps are not being taken seriously - because they don't put out anything like the claimed power, and aren't remotely as loud - especially in a gig situation where how well it holds up in a mix is dependent on the same volume and dynamics - as equivalent properly-spec'ed amps.
In any case, unlike a music-programme amp (hi-fi, PA etc) a guitar amp *can* sometimes be expected to produce a continuous full distorted output - if you hold a sustained chord into feedback, for example. So the idea that you can claim that it's putting out an 'average' of the same power is simply wrong, unless it can actually do so continuously.
The only valid rating for a musical instrument amp is continuous clean sine-wave power (sometimes called RMS, although wrongly) - anything else is an exaggeration and the amp won't perform to the same level in reality.
If companies want modern amps to be taken seriously, they need to stop bullshitting about the ratings. It's getting as bad as the car audio and cheap hi-fi racket.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
This is about exaggerating the actual amount of power that the amp can put out, which will have an even worse effect on the perceived volume.
The idea comes from PA-type amps which are only used for a clean, full-mix music programme where the transients are far higher than the average level - usually up to around four times. So the average power output of the amp is much less than the theoretical continuous maximum. Thus, if you design the amp so it can store enough energy in the power supply to cope with the peaks, the average power output can be raised. This means that the theoretical maximum can be set at a level which couldn't be achieved if it had to be continuous - even higher than the power input to the amp sometimes. (Which would otherwise be physically impossible.) So it is legitimate to claim a power output higher than the power draw, for an amp which will only be used for programme music.
But this is not true for a musical instrument amp, especially not a guitar amp which has to produce a continuous distorted sound.
If it doesn't matter, where do you draw the line? Is it OK to describe a 10W amp as "100W" if you can get 100W out of it for a fraction of a second? Would someone who bought it because they wanted an amp with enough power to complete with a drummer be wrong to be annoyed when it couldn't?
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Valve amp power ratings are even more meaningless so I don't see why it matters.
Power consumption = preamp power + actual power output+10%.
At a rough guess it looks like the 50-watter is a 25W amp, the 100-watter is a 50W amp and the preamp draws about 20W, or maybe a little less than those power outputs if the power stage isn't as efficient and there are other fixed losses - maybe 20W and 40W.
And even at that, that's Class D solid-state so it will be only half as much as a valve amp of the same rated power can produce when driven into distortion. Or even a Class AB solid-state one, although it's debatable if you'd want to hear that.
Bottom line, nowhere near equivalent to the volume you would expect from the claimed power ratings.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Both solid-state and valve Class AB amps have always been rated according to the continuous clean sine-wave power they can produce, usually at 1KHz and 1% THD.
The reason it matters is because if you allow companies to get away with spurious claims you end up with people buying amps that won't do the job they were bought for.
You also end up with the more insidious problem that modern-tech amps are not taken seriously because they just don't perform as well as they're expected to going on the rated power - musicians shouldn't need to know that you have to reverse-engineer the figures to work out how loud a claimed power output will be in reality.
The only company I can think of who get it is Blackstar - their Class D amps are as loud as equivalent valve amps (more or less), because they have deliberately made them capable of double the claimed power.
… rather than half.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
For both solid state amps and valve amps the clean sine wave power is of little or no use.