guitarists...check these out

[rottonsoul]

www.vadercabinets.com
I just got mine in the mail today!! Fuck yeah!! These things handle like 480 watts!! Suffocation uses them and I guess Pig Destroyer is using them now too!

 

[noisefan]

I saw Suffocation last Saturday night. Absolutely brutal!

One thing I can say, it doesn't make too much of a difference what gear you use if the soundman won't turn you up!! The first three or four songs sounded pretty weak. Luckily it improved and the rest of the show was incredible.

 

[Kenneth R.]

anything beyond 150watts is overcompensation for something.

seriously, your ears can't tell the difference. our hearing isn't linear. it'd take 1500watts to sound roughly 2x as loud as 150watts. so 480 won't be much louder, and surely won't be any clearer. its a waste of money, especially when there are higher quality cabinets out there.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

There is a difference, basically a lower wattage cabinet's speakers will break up sooner than one with more headroom, and higher wattage ones will sound clearer. If there wasnt a difference in speaker handling then gigs would all have 150w PA speakers...

 

[Kenneth R.]

i never said there was no difference. i said your ears can't tell the difference. especially in proportion to the way your bank account will tell the difference. lower amp wattages are for specific uses, i believe around 150w is the max necessary for just about anything. i'm not discussing PAs. look at the thread title. guitarists. aka, guitar amps. if you want more punch than that, get a 150w amp and mic it. there's no reason to spend a fortune on crap that's pretentious and no better (if not worse) than other high quality products out there.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

You missed the point completely, being that the PA is an example. A 150w cab will break up, ie, distort speaker wise if pushed by a cranked amp a lot sooner than a 300w or 480w cab (Like an amp they have more headroom). Basically a higher wattage amp will convey the amp more clearly and have better punch to it generally, whilst a lower wattage cab may have more warmth.

You made a statement saying there is no difference. In volume, well, at that level your ears are getting punished anyway, but as far as frequency response goes and sound, then your ears CAN tell the difference.

Everyone seems to forget that a bad cab will make even the best amp sound rubbish, while a good cab can make an amp sound better, and you surely must know that, right?

As for amp wattages I used a 60w rivera power amp for a couple of years and it was louder than you'd ever need. 150w for an amp is just stupid and beyond anything you'd want, besides, it's all about the power tube saturation

 

[Kenneth R.]

so why buy something "louder than you'd ever need" in the cab department to hook it into? i agree with you, i just don't see the point in spending money on something so over the top. its like getting your guitar gold-plated. you can do it, but why bother?

 

[Indiooo]

It's about headroom. You won't sound any louder using a 100w cab like a Greenback loaded 412 than you would using a 240w V30 loaded 412 cab. A cab by itself doesn't produce sound. If you have a head that puts out 100w RMS, that's all you're going to get, period. The difference is that using that 100w head cranked into the Greenback loaded 412 you get speaker distortion (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on the tone you're going for) and may blow up the speakers if you really dime the volume. On the other hand, using the V30 loaded cabinet, you have a lot more headroom, so there's no speaker distortion going on. Different tools for different tones.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

so why buy something "louder than you'd ever need" in the cab department to hook it into? i agree with you, i just don't see the point in spending money on something so over the top. its like getting your guitar gold-plated. you can do it, but why bother?

As the guy below said, it's all about headroom. Different sounds, and to be honest there isnt that much difference in price when it comes to cabs, except between brands, also, it actually strangely also comes down to construction as some cabs are built so that they dont rattle and are sturdy.

Besides that, do bear in mind that the more you downtune, the more strain you are going to put on a speaker as lower frequencies tend to distort faster as the frequency response of speakers in the low end often distorts more than say the midrange. So getting a speaker with good low frequency response allows you to crank the low end without if going fuzzy and without the speakers farting as much or at all (trying playing a heavily downtuned guitar through a bass cab and you'll see what I mean), so a speaker with high rating and good overall low frequency response while still retaining highs will have higher wattage to cope. Also remember that as you dont have a crossover in guitar cabs (ie: smaller tweeters for high frequency, larger speakers for bass response) that the cone has to be quite flexible to reproduce the high frequencies without them tailing off, again you'll see what I mean when playing through a bass cab

Hope this makes sense,

James

 

[Kenneth R.]

you sound like other people in my engineering class.

ok, convinced. but i still think as far as heads go, some of the new high-wattage ones are unnecessarily over the top.

 

[Sex Machine]

im getting the marshall mode 4 350 watt amp...

why? because more watts = more powerful sound at show volume.

when you use a 100 watt head that needs to be put up to like 7 or 8 for a show, the amp starts to lose its powerfulness. when you use a 350 watt head, your playing at about 4 and the sound is amazing.

especially for death metal and shit you want that brutal heavy sound, and when you have more power, you get a heavier, more brutal sound.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

im getting the marshall mode 4 350 watt amp...

why? because more watts = more powerful sound at show volume.

when you use a 100 watt head that needs to be put up to like 7 or 8 for a show, the amp starts to lose its powerfulness. when you use a 350 watt head, your playing at about 4 and the sound is amazing.

especially for death metal and shit you want that brutal heavy sound, and when you have more power, you get a heavier, more brutal sound.

Load of bollocks. I've never used a 100w tube head at full blast on stage, and I've now done 2 world tours, the thing is with tube amps is that when the power tubes start to saturte, then you get a sweet spot. 100w is loud, 150w of tube amp will give you more than you'll ever need.

And as for the mode 4, i went down to marshall to run through a few amps to see if i liked them, and that thing was worse than rubbish, it just sounded like a metalzone at a louder volume. I hated it, and you are never going to use 350w, but then again, it is a transistor amp, and they just never seem as loud as tubes when rated watt for watt. Do yourself a favour and avoid this amp.

 

[Kenneth R.]

if you insist.

statistically as well as aesthetically (at least from my experiences), things like marshall's mode 4 are a waste of money. marshall makes great great amps, and the introduction of the mode4 as well as some other company's 300-400 watt heads seems like a desperate ploy to appeal to metal guitarists. the sound will *not* be drastically louder, it will barely be audibly louder. as for tone quality, thats subjective but personally i'd much rather play through a JCM or a mesa Roadking than a Mode4. odd thing is, the Mode4 costs in the same range as those amazing amps.

1-2k for most good heads and the Mode4 is 1.5k.

Maybe it works for some people, but i don't see it as any more than a gimmick.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

Sorry, also, if you want a heavier more brutal sound, you want a tigtht power amp and good cabs that'll handle bass response, not a louder amp. Also a punchy sound that is focused, which has more to do with your eq settings and power amp than with the wattage. what people have said in this thread is right, you'll NEVER need more than 100-150w of power out of a tube head, although your mileage may vary on tranny amps.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

you sound like other people in my engineering class.

ok, convinced. but i still think as far as heads go, some of the new high-wattage ones are unnecessarily over the top.

I was an engineer before my change in career

100w is more than enough, 150w is really the maximum. And although i've said it in a previous post, I also agree with you on the Mode4, literally the biggest pile of crap i've played for a while. I am of the opinion that anything you plug into that you cant get a good to great sound out of in 5 minutes is a waste of time. The mode4 lasted 10 seconds, basically one chord, before it got turned of and the marshall rep literally got told that it was the "A Load of Fucking Bollocks"

But then again, from experience it seems like a lot of guitarists seem to think that a sound that is cool in your bedroom translates to a band/gig situation and scoop all the mids out, hence requiring to run the amp at stupid volumes just to make it audible. Your amp needs to rest in the frequencies not occupied by anyone else, otherwise noone is going to hear any pof the music you've worked hard on properly.

 

[Indiooo]

The thing with solid state amps is that they just can't be cranked, as the tone gets horrible (fizzy, really dry and scratchy). That's why they are rated at 350w and beyond, so you'll never be able or need to put them on 10. They sound their best at half power or so, just enough to get the speakers moving. Which is still bad tone but that's another thread...

 

[Bryant]

im getting the marshall mode 4 350 watt amp...

why? because more watts = more powerful sound at show volume.

when you use a 100 watt head that needs to be put up to like 7 or 8 for a show, the amp starts to lose its powerfulness. when you use a 350 watt head, your playing at about 4 and the sound is amazing.

especially for death metal and shit you want that brutal heavy sound, and when you have more power, you get a heavier, more brutal sound.

I can take a 30 watt combo amp and play as loud as a wall of Marshalls if I have a powerful enough PA.

You don't want your amp to be blasting out too loud and here is why:

1) Unless your amp is sitting in front or behind the drum rise, then you are going to be louder on your side of the stage than the other. If you are in a two guitar band and you both "crank up," people in front of you will hear you and people in front of the other guitarist will hear the other guitarist.
2) If your amp is blaring then you can't hear your monitor and won't be able to hear the other musicians in the band which can throw off your timing.
3) You either have to use a strong noise gate to keep feedback out, and even then deal with too much feedback.

You don't want 480 W cabinets and here is why (to the original poster

1) Sound volume is not measured in watts. Watts is nothing more than electricity used. I know a guy that has a really expensive stereo system that has just a 25 watt tube amplifiers and I can't stay in the same room when the stereo is turned up (and I am a rock/metal concert veteran) and the reason is because the speakers he uses are extremely efficient. What "efficiency" is for a speaker is in layman's terms is it's ability to convert electricity into sound well.
Many speakers that handle high power don't use the power efficiently. The cones on the speakers have to physically move to create sound and efficient speakers "move" more with less power than inefficient speakers. Most speakers (be them audio loudspeakers or musical instrument speakers) have an efficiency rating in decibels (Db.) The bigger the number, the more efficient the speaker is and the louder the speaker will be for the given amount of power applied to the speaker. I will almost guarantee that the 480W cabinet is loaded with low effeciency speakers and a 100 watt head will push a standard cabinet "louder" than that cabinet.

I am not trying to make you feel bad or saying you made a bad choice. If you like the sound and volume of the cabinets, that is what is important, not my opinion. I am simply trying to give you a little insight about how power ratings can be marketing ploys.


Bryant


Bryant

 

[USMC0341]

Load of bollocks. I've never used a 100w tube head at full blast on stage, and I've now done 2 world tours, the thing is with tube amps is that when the power tubes start to saturte, then you get a sweet spot. 100w is loud, 150w of tube amp will give you more than you'll ever need.

And as for the mode 4, i went down to marshall to run through a few amps to see if i liked them, and that thing was worse than rubbish, it just sounded like a metalzone at a louder volume. I hated it, and you are never going to use 350w, but then again, it is a transistor amp, and they just never seem as loud as tubes when rated watt for watt. Do yourself a favour and avoid this amp.

What band(s) did you do 2 world tours with?

 

[Kenneth R.]

I was an engineer before my change in career

.

saying "frequency response" totally tipped me off
i agree 100%. and i learned stuff about cabs. i thought they were on a similar scale as heads, guess i was wrong.

 

[Barking Pumpkin]

I really know nothing about the hardware and science of these things (and even less compared with these guys), but no guitarist that I know uses an amp that uses that much wattage. So.....I think if I ever get a mega-amp.....I'll be happy with something a whole lot less than 480 watts.

I must be getting really tired.....I misused know and no twice while writing this.....I really need to finish my work and go to bed.