The Eternal Question: How many watts?

Hotspur

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So I've been eyeing a Bassbreaker for a little while and suspect it's about time to make the leap from my hybrid VoxAV30. I like that amp, but, you know, at some point we all have to dive in to some real pure tube goodness, right?

But I find myself stuck between the 15 and the 30r.

Most of my use is going to be at home or in small-band settings where the 15 watts will be fine. I'd be saving some money, but giving up channel switching, and I'm told the clean headroom on the 15 is not great at volume.

Every so often, though, I play with a group and we play LOUD. One of my friends I jam with has a 50-watt Mesa, and basically there's no way for us to jam without me wanting to wear earplugs. We've got a drummer. We go pretty hard. Now, granted, in the pandemic we haven't played, so I am buying it on the hopes that we'll get back to our regular jamming.

That being said, the largest room I'm likely to play in anytime in the next few years without a PA for the amp is, let's say, a large yoga studio, or a small outdoor stage with a crowd of no more than 150 people.

The 15 is more portable. It's more convenient. On the other hand, down the road I could see myself getting something like a Supro Delta King which would cover a lot of the "less loud, more convenient" territory, but would have the same clean headroom problem, and thus would be more redundant with the 15 than the 30.

The absence of channel-switching on the 15 probably means I'd want an additional pedal for heavier distortion, maybe some sort of vintage-style fuzz. That also cuts down the financial savings of the 15.

But maybe I'm setting myself for a lot of annoyance by getting the 30? I'd probably need something like the JHS Little Black Amp Box, which is fine, or, heck maybe even a real attenuator. Or I could just get the 15, and hope it's loud enough clean and be okay without channel switching?

I know this is an unanswerable question - but I'd appreciate people with more experience's thoughts not he matter.

Primary guitar is a SE Hollowbody II, although I also use a Chris Robertson.
 
Check out the bluguitar amp 1 as a solution that can cover all your volume needs. 100 watts of power (it's actually rated higher than this to cover the peaks) but can easily play comfortably at TV volumes. There is a hidden power scale option accessable via midi or separate foot remote that can adjust power right down to 0.25W but this isn't really necessary as the master volume can handle the job fine - just depends if you want to add some power amp distortion.
You have 4 channels from clean all the way up to modern high gain. Each channel has more compression and gain than the last. Covers plexi, jcm800 to the modded Marshalls like bogners but the tone controls are active and can shape the sounds to many other flavours.
And it's tiny and lightweight too
 
A friend had the 30 and it sounded nice, I don’t think you’d regret it. I like single channel amps too, and own several, but if I had only one amp for a lot of different gigs, I’d have a channel switcher. The extra wattage will also cover that clean headroom.

You might be ok with the 15, but the 30 sounds more the sure bet.
 
Watts means nothing. My Boogie with one cab had master half way and I still could play home without my neighbours calling cops. My Orange though with master half way blown my freaking head off and splatter my brain in 100 yard radius.

Both 50w
 
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Watts means nothing. My Boogie with one cab had master half way and I still could play home without my neighbours calling cops. My Orange though with master half way blown my freaking head off and splatter my brain in 100 yard radius.

Both 50w

The above post was edited to keep things PG-13.

Volume pot taper is always a factor in examples like that. My Classic 30 was LOUD at 3, almost full volume at 4 and only compressed and added drive from 5 on up on the clean channel.

But a better example was my Mark V. It clearly showed how, when amps are designed to be used at a wide gain range, (especially the multiple "modes" and wattage settings of the Mesa stuff) the master can be quite a bit different in one "mode" vs. another. The more gain you had, the louder it was earlier in the master, but the sooner it hit max volume and only added gain. The less gain you used in the preamp or the less gain that "setting" had, the more linear the master was and would get louder and louder way up on the master.

The master on my Archon seems very well chosen as it keeps getting louder and louder all the way up on both channels. 10 is louder than 9 is louder than 8, which is unusual in high gain amps. Or at least not the norm.

That said, some amps are louder than others that are rated at the same or similar power output.
 
I've downsized my amps and switched to more efficient speakers. You should be able to make a 15-watt amp with an efficient speaker, as loud as an unmodified 30-to-50-watt amp. Besides for efficient speakers, I use a backup amp and/or PA support.

As a working musician, I have 2 rules:
1. Show up on time, set-up and ready to play.
2. Have a backup for everything.

You don't have to spend a lot on your backup. I've used Peavey solid states and Boss Katana's. It can be used. I actually prefer a digital or SS backups, as the vibration of travelling, can cause tubes to fail. When you play for an artist, you don't have time to trouble shoot a problem. I always have my backup ready to go, even if I don't need it for volume.
 
More.

You can always turn the amp's volume down, but you can't turn the amp up past it's maximum power.
 
My MkIII’s master volume had three modes: whisper, gig, and Indiana Jones-style melt faces off of nazis mode. Only one outdoor gig did I have both 2x12 cabs and master at 5+. Needed more volume and it just didn’t have it. Stepped in front of a cab to adjust the amp during a song and got a deep tissue shiatsu massage. Friends said they could hear my solos from the other side of the track (it was an enduro cart track). We were on a flatbed trailer equipped with bees!

Don’t have a full rig shot, but here’s me and my oldest son in the blasting 105F wind. We needed haircuts but it was 2010.

drewkerry.jpg

The cabs were WAY stage left…
masongflatbed.jpg
 
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My MkIII’s master volume had three modes: whisper, gig, and Indiana Jones-style melt faces off of nazis mode. Only one outdoor gig did I have both 2x12 cabs and master at 5+. Needed more volume and it just didn’t have it. Stepped in front of a cab to adjust the amp during a song and got a deep tissue shiatsu massage. Friends said they could hear my solos from the other side of the track (it was an enduro cart track). We were on a flatbed trailer equipped with bees!

Don’t have a full rig shot, but here’s me and my oldest son in the blasting 105F wind. We needed haircuts but it was 2010.

drewkerry.jpg

The cabs were WAY stage left…
masongflatbed.jpg

Great photo of you and young Boogie!
 
If you need to do clean playing with the band, I’d get the 30. I think you’ll notice the lack of headroom on the 15 much more than any difference in tone at home/bedroom volume on the 15 vs 30.

If you only need crunch sounds, the 15 will probably work. And, really, with a proper PA setup for smaller gigs, you would only need 15 watts for clean or dirty stage volume. But, we all know the gig world doesn’t always work that way!
 
I figure we're not THAT far from tech like this replacing tube amps almost completely.

But I've never had a pure tube amp. If not now, when?
Good point. There is something about having a tube amp. They can be finiky though - big ones can be tricky to set quietly as they go from nothing to too loud in hairs movement and small ones run out of clean headroom. Apart from the unusual form factor and the more forgiving volumes the amp 1 does behave like a real tube amp but if do get that it isn't the desirable thing to lust after. I'm borrowing a Mesa boogie mkiii in wood, with the wicker grill and all the optional extras; it's lovely and definitely something to desire but it's not the most practical for home use and there is nothing that it does that the amp 1 can't also do
 
I honestly think the wattage is more about the design of the amp, the transformers, the tone, etc., and what you want an amp to sound like, than how loud it'll play. A 100W amp of the same model has a different tone character to the 50W version of the same amp. Etc.

Volume can always be compensated for by a good attenuator or master volume if you're not in a situation where you can play loudly. On the other hand, you can't get the tight low end of, say, a 100W Marshall with the 50W version. Won't happen. They're inherently different.

So for me, the real question is, what is someone looking for tonally?
 
100 for clean headroom; 50 for girth; 30 for everything else. Speaking only for myself, of course.

This is my mindset, too. If I grab a 100 watt amp, I'm not expecting power tube saturation. I expect it to stay tight and clean at a higher volume. I usually skip 50 watt amps unless there is a certain design that makes it special. I look at 30 watts, especially with EL34 or 6L6 tubes, as being the best "compromise" amp, even though it is still loud. From there, I look at 15 watts as being my raunchy rock tone. Give me a 15 watt Vox or Bad Cat and I'm in tonal heaven.
 
This is my mindset, too. If I grab a 100 watt amp, I'm not expecting power tube saturation. I expect it to stay tight and clean at a higher volume. I usually skip 50 watt amps unless there is a certain design that makes it special. I look at 30 watts, especially with EL34 or 6L6 tubes, as being the best "compromise" amp, even though it is still loud. From there, I look at 15 watts as being my raunchy rock tone. Give me a 15 watt Vox or Bad Cat and I'm in tonal heaven.

It's good to have choices!

I'm with you on all this.

I had a 400 Watt, all-tube Mesa Bass 400+. Best ever bass amp for me. You'd think it'd be crazy loud. It wasn't. It simply had gobs of headroom.

Paul McCartney uses one to this day, even though they've been discontinued for quite some time.

"Too many one-sentence paragraphs, sir."

"Yes, I realize that now. But so what."

"By the way, who's Paul McCartney?"

"Just some old dude. Never mind."
 
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