The Wattage Conundrum - My Take

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I like higher wattage amps. Always have. But we're all different, and I certainly respect other folks' needs and the differences in all of our playing styles. I wanted to get an open, honest, no-anger conversation going about the tradeoffs involved in choosing low-watt amps, and provide some insight into why I feel the way I do.

This isn't a prescription; what works for me, and why, may not work at all for you. So I'm not saying that anyone else should do what I do. I'm not trying to convince anyone to share my likes and dislikes. At all. This is intended more as food for thought, because I think the rage for low power amps might be based partly on perceived needs that involve compromises we may or may not want.

We're just having a conversation here, not an argument. With that said, here's my experience over many years of playing and having owned lots and lots of amps:

Dynamics

I'm going to define a low power amp as something less than about 30 watts. There are lots of 30 watt amps with very good dynamic range and headroom; the AC30 and Grissom 30 Watt amps come to mind. My Roccaforte 30 Rockie is another amp that really delivered fantastic dynamic range and could get quite loud, or play softly. It lives with my son in LA now.

Their design allows for headroom, dynamic range, and they can get very loud if that's what the player wants.

Dynamics -- that is, varying between loud and soft - is part of music, and adds to the emotion.

Part of my playing style is using an amp's dynamic range and headroom. That is, I want loud notes, played hard, to respond with power, and softs to be very soft. And I don't necessarily want to push the amp into flubby distortion and compression when I want a note to punch a little bit more. Low power amps tend to distort and get squishy as the guitar levels are increased, and in general, I think the playing dynamics are inherently compromised.

Granted, the blues giants who used 20 watt Deluxes used that to their advantage and certainly got great tones, so yes, it's certainly possible to do that! But my style is a bit different from, say, Albert King's. And today's blues players, like Bonamassa, are not using Deluxes, they're running more powerful amps, because music has changed. Albert King fronted a band with a piano and horns, acoustic instruments. A guy like Bonamassa is rocking out to a large house and has different needs.

I think having a wide dynamic range helps my playing be more expressive. If you have a powerful amp you aren't hitting the wall with the dynamic limitation of the thing.

Speaker Distortion

A higher power amp will also get you some nice speaker distortion. The lower power amps will let you hear power tube distortion, but unless you're running an Alnico speaker, you're not getting much distortion on the speaker with a ceramic magnet speaker that is designed to run with more powerful amps. The Greenback is about the lowest wattage Brit-style ceramic speaker I can find that will break up with under a 30 watt amp, and at that, the amp has to be dimed. Old Jensens will break up under lower wattage, too.

Low End Clarity

Clear, piano-like lows, especially clean, are another thing low power amps have difficulty reproducing. They tend to flub out, where something like my 100 watt Lone Star sounds like a freaking 9 foot Concert Grand, with a lot of tightness and clarity on a Low E. They flub out simply because they can't handle the full output of the guitar without distorting, and distortion = less definition in the low end (though of course, it can sound rich and fat). But most 100 Watt amps can also do a rich, fat, distorted low end, with judicious use of the master volume and gain controls.

The point is, it's nice to have a choice, instead of being stuck in one mode.

Master Volumes

It's my experience that a higher powered amp with a good master volume can play as softly as a lower power amp, and sound better doing it, because it has more headroom clean, and more dynamic range dirty.

Bottom Line -- For Me...

The DG30 can get very loud, and it's an amp designed for peaks that are probably much higher than 30 watts. So it has strong dynamic range, though it's certainly not going to give me the piano type lows of a 100 watt amp.

The HXDA 30 is an amp I mainly use fairly overdriven, so I can record with it quite happily and it's easy to get signal to "tape." I love my HXDA 30.

But the 50 Watt version of the same amp definitely had a more flexible dynamic range.

That was a trade-off I knowingly made, and I did it to have what it does for recording because I did tend to shake the room with the 50 Watt HXDA. However, I still would get another 50 Watt amp, maybe a DG50 just to have something with a little more dynamic range and "give." In fact, if PRS still makes a 100 Watt HXDA (it's a little unclear), I may add one down the road. Fortunately, with my studio gear, I can mess with the dynamics and volume, but if I was a live player, I'd want at least the 50 Watt, and probably the 100.

Whether I add to my rig or not at this point depends on the outcome of whether my ulnar nerve heals, or my hand continues to go downhill. There's no need for me to keep investing in guitars and amps if I can't play them!

And honestly, I'd feel this way as a so-called "bedroom player," given the quality of today's master volume amps. I posted in my thread about how happy I am with my rig, and that's true. But I make no secret of my preference for amps that can deliver a wider range of dynamics, because to me that means greater expressiveness.
 
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It is an interesting question and one I don't really know much about.
I've always had high power amps and been happy with how I've been able to dial in what I want from them. If the first band I played out in didn't need me to be able to be heard in a small (~4000 seats) arena, I might have started differently and developed an appreciation for lower power gear.

I play fairly clean and consider what I add with the amp to be character more than distortion/fuzz/whatever. I use dynamics and texture a lot - but with my hands and I want that to come out through the speaker. I believe (but don't know) that having power helps with this.

I am interested in some of the modern low power options though and have been thinking of experimenting with them.
 
I am interested in some of the modern low power options though and have been thinking of experimenting with them.

I don't want to give the impression that I haven't experimented with low power amps, at least to check them out. I have!

But ultimately, I think they're not for me.
 
I've gone back and forth over the years between high power and low power and the two big takeaways have been;

1) wattage ≠ volume (a 100w MV amp can easily be turned down and a 30w non-MV amp can struggle when it's not allowed to be turned up)

2) if the amp has a master volume I'd rather have too much than too little power.

I'd also rather have an amp with power scaling features so that I can knock back the headroom as appropriate.

At home I love the sound of a 30w amp but I had trouble using them with a band due to lack of clarity. While I had zero issues with volume I'd be at the limits of my headroom. Very mushy, no dynamics, no room to step out for a solo and difficult to clean up using my guitar's volume. Some people probably would've been in heaven, but for hard rock it was just too compressed.

That said, I traded that amp in for a 140w amp and what I ended up with was sterile and flat. Loads of dynamics, no character.

These days I tend to favour the 50w region. I typically run my Rectifier in spongy mode, which knocks the headroom back to about 65w, reduces the low end a bit, and adds some compression on the power amp side of things. Clean and lead channels use the tube rectifier for a softer, more bouncy response and crunch channels use solid state rectification for a harder, more percussive response. I also tend to run cleans on half power to reduce the dynamic range, which I find helps them blend better with a more compressed high gain sound.

The Mark V was particularly cool in this regard. Cleans on 45w/tube rectifier for more bounce, crunch on 90w/SS rectifier for more punch, and lead on 90w/triode (~75w) for more compression and midrange emphasis. For lower volume stuff I used to flip on the variac to sag the headroom and it sounded awesome through a couple of 1x12s.
 
I have very little experience with this, so am subscribing to this thread, mostly to 'audit'.

If I may add a question to those being discussed -- where does headroom fall in all of this? I've heard of amps breaking up "early" meaning they don't have much headroom, and I understand that this is in fact desirable, but some of the characteristics you describe, Les -- specifically that piano like low end clarity -- strike me as a headroom thing. Because (and this is my physics background talking, so feel free to correct me of the practical does not match the theoretical in my head) bass frequencies require more headroom, I thought.
 
I clearly understand all Les is saying about higher wattage amps, but then I love the sound of the small EL84s...
I have a Laney LC15R which came in a small 1x10" speaker. Nothing fancy, PCB made etc... nice for house use but not loud enough to Jam with a loud drummer and other guitarists.
By accident, I plugged it in a 2x12" cab... what a difference that made... Sounded like it had double the power.
At the time I also had a Marshall JTM30 (2x5881 tubes) in a 2x10" combo format. I really preferred the sound of the small 15 watt Laney through the same 2x12 cab.
Currently the small Laney is in a TAD 2x12" combo enclosure made for a Matchless clone and 2 x Celestion Greenbaks.
My Jam Band settings are with the master at 5-6 and the gain at 2. At these settings it sounds crystal clear and full and it can make a few things in the practice room rattle and move! :) I have a TC Nova System at the front for everything else and it works... The other guitarist I usually Jam with has a newer DSL40 combo.
It breaks up (Malcom Young style) with the Volume at 7-8 and the gain at 3-4. With both gain and volume at 7 it still clears up nicely when you back off the guitar's volume. Can't imagine running something bigger...My 2p and all that.
 
I have very little experience with this, so am subscribing to this thread, mostly to 'audit'.

If I may add a question to those being discussed -- where does headroom fall in all of this? I've heard of amps breaking up "early" meaning they don't have much headroom, and I understand that this is in fact desirable, but some of the characteristics you describe, Les -- specifically that piano like low end clarity -- strike me as a headroom thing. Because (and this is my physics background talking, so feel free to correct me of the practical does not match the theoretical in my head) bass frequencies require more headroom, I thought.

Bass frequencies require more power to reproduce, and amps with low headroom tend to either mush up or sound thin, depending on the design.

A lot of low powered amps have the bottom end cut as part of their design. This puts less strain on the amplifier and produces a clearer sound, but they lack the girth of a high powered amp.

Some low powered amps allow more bottom end through, so they sound fuller when used within their limits but they mush up hard when they hit their limit. You'll usually hear this referred to as either "farting out" or "the brown sound".

Whether or not "early breakup" is desirable or not depends upon your goals. There's a reason the Fender Twin and Bassman are still staple amplifiers; some people want and authoritative clean with huge piano lows and minimal breakup. There's a reason 100w is still dominant in rock and metal, when you're down picking 8th notes at 220bpm the last thing you want is your amp compression killing the machine gun effect. And while I don't know much about funk or rockabilly, I have a hard time seeing one of this guys using a 10w amp.

Conversely, there's a reason why the AC30 and Deluxe Reverb are staples. Not everyone wants a clean tone that'll rattle foundations or a crunch tone that can cave in your chest. Some people want sweet breakup and compression they can control with their fingers on the strings, and man is it ever a thing of beauty.
 
I have very little experience with this, so am subscribing to this thread, mostly to 'audit'.

If I may add a question to those being discussed -- where does headroom fall in all of this? I've heard of amps breaking up "early" meaning they don't have much headroom, and I understand that this is in fact desirable, but some of the characteristics you describe, Les -- specifically that piano like low end clarity -- strike me as a headroom thing. Because (and this is my physics background talking, so feel free to correct me of the practical does not match the theoretical in my head) bass frequencies require more headroom, I thought.

Yes, that's it.
 
Throughout my amp journey wattage has always perplexed me. Back before I had money for tube amps and was living in stolid state land (Marshall avt150h, don't judge, I was in high school!) I didn't seem to notice an issue, but that amp had a master volume. The first all tube amp I picked up was my 2x12 Roadster and after reading online disabled the "tone sucking" loop which disabled its master volume and made the channel master the volume control. The end result was wall shaking so the first thing I did was cut my channels from 100w to 50w, which seemed to lessen the blow. In hindsight, a Mesa amp is not exactly the most friendly amp to jump into "tube world" with, their EQ differs from most other amps on the market which is totally why I can see Mesas getting the "tweaker amp" wrap. Cascading EQs are not exactly easy to dial in or make changes to on the fly.

When I got into the pedal game, I quickly realized that some pedals acted odd when running through the preamp instead of the effects loop (reverb and delay) so I turned the loop back on and was blown away the the volume control I had now, so back to 100w the channels went.

In between these two points I decided I wanted to get quieter amp for home use (insert the mini rectifier) so I ran out, picked up a mini rectifier head, and 1x12 cabinet and took it home plugged it in...and the head scratching began. I was frustrated by how hard and fast the volume rolled on on the amp even though it was "only" 25 watts. Modern was unplayable at 25w, and sounded thin at 10w so I settled on using Vintage mode on 25w. At the time I couldn't wrap my head around why the volume was so uncontrollable, until I found out how useful the master volume was on my Roadster.

Pretty sure from here on out if I ever own a non master volume amp again, I will probably throw a flat EQ in the loop and use it as a volume control. Between my Roadster and my Archon, I have a feeling my Rectoverb 25 will start collecting dust...
 
I tend to be sensitive to feel and attack when playing. Very rarely am I looking for more attack, I prefer a spongy attack. For me, lower-ish headroom allows me to use pick attack to raise and lower gain levels, without poking/dropping out of a mix.

My conundrum occurs in wanting a similar attack with clean and overdriven tones. My current set up gets me pretty close, albeit I could use a dash more sponge out of the Royalist.
 
I want to circumvent the argument by finding an amp with a knob for 'Headroom.'


Boom!

max_headroom.jpg
 
I tend to be sensitive to feel and attack when playing. Very rarely am I looking for more attack, I prefer a spongy attack. For me, lower-ish headroom allows me to use pick attack to raise and lower gain levels, without poking/dropping out of a mix.

My conundrum occurs in wanting a similar attack with clean and overdriven tones. My current set up gets me pretty close, albeit I could use a dash more sponge out of the Royalist.

I think part of it is finding the right amp or amps to do the variety of things we often want to do as guitar players. In my experience, there's no single answer, you have to go with your gut and do what works.

I went through quite a few before landing on the ones I went with - and that I really love a lot. At that, I found that having more than one was a good way to go to solve my various dilemmas and tone needs.

I could get by easily with any one of my amps, they're all great. But since I don't have to... ;)
 
I think part of it is finding the right amp or amps to do the variety of things we often want to do as guitar players. In my experience, there's no single answer, you have to go with your gut and do what works.

I went through quite a few before landing on the ones I went with - and that I really love a lot. At that, I found that having more than one was a good way to go to solve my various dilemmas and tone needs.

I could get by easily with any one of my amps, they're all great. But since I don't have to... ;)

I think I am circling your proverbial landing pad. My tone quest is in the seriously diminishing returns segment; aka "splitting hairs."

My real issue now is that I like multiple settings on each amp, and now multiple amps for the same type tone. E.G. my Comet sounds really great for cleans with my Custom 24 on the Rhythm Channel with volume at 3.5 AND on the Lead Channel with the volume at 2. My Royalist sounds great for cleans with my strat and the Volume at 3. I WANT TO PLAY THEM ALL AT THE SAME TIME.o_O
 
The only reasons I don't have a high wattage amp anymore are weight and no place to turn them up. I went from a 200watt Boogie Strategy 500 to a Boogie 50/50 down to a 25watt H&K combo.

Fortunately I mooch and rent a lot of amps, so I still get my "big iron" fix occasionally.
 
The only reasons I don't have a high wattage amp anymore are weight and no place to turn them up. I went from a 200watt Boogie Strategy 500 to a Boogie 50/50 down to a 25watt H&K combo.

Fortunately I mooch and rent a lot of amps, so I still get my "big iron" fix occasionally.

I would've enjoyed playing that 200 Watt beast! LOL
 
I would've enjoyed playing that 200 Watt beast! LOL

You would dig it the most! Keep in mind it was a stereo 200 watts per side. Each channel had two 6550's and four 6L6's, it was designed for playing arena's even though those p@ssyclaats Steve Vai and Kirk Hammet could only handle the 295 and 400 respectively. :p

I was in the middle of an "arms race" back then, and that thing was like having the keys to the doomsday device. We used to practice on Lake St. in the 90's (back when it was a hell hole filled with squats and meat packing places) and the cops would show up because of noise complaints! It was louder than the "L", could blow the back off a 1960 cabinet, and cost a small fortune to retube.

I miss it.... They're cheap now too.
 
We used to practice on Lake St. in the 90's (back when it was a hell hole filled with squats and meat packing places).

Dude, I got stuck on Lake St. sometime in the late '80s wearing a suit and driving a new Mustang GT. Wish I could have heard you then instead of fearing for my life. ;)

Les, I'm totally with you on the dynamics. It allows you to lightly finger pick, soft strum, or dig in and go from mild to wild with your hands alone. Same thing with driving the speakers. So much of the magic is in moving air. But for me, instead of low end clarity, it's about the low end growl. That's still all about having headroom because I don't want that growl while lightly finger picking. But the pant-tightening mojo happens when you dig in a little and let that reserve amp power abuse speaker cones. Very, very addictive.
 
I've owned a 5, 15, 30, 40, and 100, some have been good and some a bust, and not always in the expected fashion. My 5 is the modded Valve Jr that I've mentioned before - it had a weak low end prior to putting an oversized Hammond output transformer in it. Now it has balls, for 5 watts. By no means does it have the chest-thumping power of a 100 watt amp, but it can keep up with a band that's keeping things relaxed and at low to moderate volumes, and it fits in the mix perfectly. Had a Tweaker 15 head that I played through a 1x12 cab, and it sounded appropriate for its size, but it was redundant for those small gigs, and underpowered for bigger ones. Went to a Tweaker 40 combo, and lack of balls was the key feature of that amp. Way too much amp packed in a tiny cabinet, and it sounded boxy and shrill despite being quite loud. My 100 watt is a monster, plain and simple, but I sometimes find that it lacks the tonal complexity of (relatively) smaller amps - like it trades power for refinement. And I would say that's my biggest fear in large amps, especially when it comes to having "too much amp" for the gig. Like it isn't hitting its intended purpose until it's just way too loud. Of course, that all depends on the specific amp, I'm sure there are 100's that have the right curves even turned down.

When it comes to ideal power for me, 30-50 watts is where it's at. The biggest problem is that I don't know many "30-50 watt" drummers! They're either ultra conservative and wouldn't dare make anyone in the room raise the volume of a conversation, or want to produce the loudest wall of chaos ever made by the human body. I think a hot, but not maxed, volume on a mid powered amp is that sweet spot where people can feel the music, but not so loud that it scares them off. The amp has punch, and gets some sweetness from the power section to smooth things out and be very touch sensitive.

PRS does it right when it comes to amps - they've offered some amps at 30-50 watts, but with power supplies that far exceed their actual output (the Blistertone comes to mind). So, I guess if we're breaking things down to frequency response curves and so on, a lower wattage amp, IMO, can have the same response, tonal proportions if you will, just with less chest-thumping, headroom producing power.

Even my SE30 has a TON of low end - unfortunately the company dropped the ball a little bit on shaping that low end, which is my current crusade. I wrongly assumed the Eminence OEM speakers were V30 flavored, but I recently discovered that they aren't. Lots more low mids and loose bass when the amp is past 75% of the MV. I assumed it was purely power amp squish, but tried a different cab recently and discovered otherwise. I'm working hard to make 30 watts enough for a live hard rock rig (even if only for gigs with a good PA), some might say it's impossible, and it may be... But I'm sure gonna try!

Also, Les, I see you wanting that DG 50. Do it!
 
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You would dig it the most! Keep in mind it was a stereo 200 watts per side. Each channel had two 6550's and four 6L6's, it was designed for playing arena's even though those p@ssyclaats Steve Vai and Kirk Hammet could only handle the 295 and 400 respectively. :p

I was in the middle of an "arms race" back then, and that thing was like having the keys to the doomsday device. We used to practice on Lake St. in the 90's (back when it was a hell hole filled with squats and meat packing places) and the cops would show up because of noise complaints! It was louder than the "L", could blow the back off a 1960 cabinet, and cost a small fortune to retube.

I miss it.... They're cheap now too.

I remember seeing them...they were like my Bass 400+, a 400 watt bass amp. Back then Mesa had Road Ready bass cabs, that were like rack gear, with extruded aluminum trim, doors to protect the fronts, and formica-covered cabinets. You couldn't destroy them. I had a matching rack for the head, too. The rig looked like it was ready for...well...much more than my studio. ;)

A crapload of glass, very expensive to re-tube, but so totally worth it.
 
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