Cabs,Cabs,Cabs? School a Gitamp Noob.

[warwick.hoy]

In bass land the common theme is that Wattage tends to take a back seat to Air Movement (number of speaker cabs) in terms of volume. The logic being that you get appreciably more volume with the number of drivers you add to your array than you would if you were to increase the amount of power you push without adding any speaker cabs.

Is that same logic applicable in guitar land?

For my purposes I'm looking to start playing guitar in bands; not that I have aversion to bass,...just wanna do something different. I've been looking into Orange amps because they seem to have the tone and gain that I want. I'm also looking into something that will work well in home/studio environments. Unfortunately I'd have to sell the farm in order to buy a Thunderverb 50 which has the wattage plus the attenuation (for better or worse). So a decent seeming compromise would be the Thunder 30. I feel like it would do well with home/studio environments with the full/half/half of the half power and give me the sound I want for stage. I do worry that it won't be loud enough for some venues.

If I do wind up running into an issue with volume on stage can I follow bass land logic and just add more cabinets to increase volume. I feel like it's a no brainer,...but prehaps there is something I'm overlooking or not considering.

Bonus Question; what would be some good drivers to consider for these amps. I'm looking for a nice creamy bass heavy tone (Sludge/Doom/Stoner whatever) that plays well with fuzz. I'm currently looking into Avatar Contemporary 2x12s; cause I'm cheap and have had good experiences with Avatar.

[chillerthanmost]

Speaker law increases volume by 3db when you double the amount of speakers. Downside to that is when you don't have enough power to push them, they might not be reaching their full potential to begin with. If you're going with a 30w amp, I would suggest an open back 2x12 with high decibel rated speakers. For instance, my EVM-12L loaded 2x12 is much louder than my Celestion 65 loaded 4x12. EVM's are rated 101db, two of them gives me a combined 104db. 65's are rated 96db, four of them gives me 102db. On top of that, my 2x12 is an open back which cuts a hair of low end but adds much more dispersion and fills the room like nothing else. Specially placed in front of a good wall to project against. So, essentially, my 50-60 watt amps are just as loud, if not louder at times, than my 100w amps.

So look out for speakers rated above 100db if you're looking for volume with a low watt amp. Eminence has a lot of them. Good luck.

[Gone Fission]

My understanding that doubling wattage from 50 watts to 100 is good for, yep, 3 more dB. Advantage for more speaks is that you can spread them and get more dispersion/less beaming. Downside for more speaks is if you use different drivers you give a lot of folks at TB a sad. Or maybe that's a plus.

[goroth]

Number of speakers doesn't affect volume. The biggest factor affecting volume is speaker efficiency, and the frequency curve of the speaker. One thing to consider is how much speaker breakup you want. That is, the cone distorting the sound when pushed hard. I hate it, but plenty of good sounds utilise it.

I say this in all threads, but consider getting a 0.5-2 watt head for home, and a 50 watter for gigs. I have a two watt head and can't crank it at home. A 2x12 is a great idea, easy to move from home to gigs, and if you get it up on a crate or orient it vertically you don't really notice that much of a difference from a 412.

[warwick.hoy]

My understanding that doubling wattage from 50 watts to 100 is good for, yep, 3 more dB. Advantage for more speaks is that you can spread them and get more dispersion/less beaming. Downside for more speaks is if you use different drivers you give a lot of folks at TB a sad. Or maybe that's a plus.

My aim is to depress TB. But yah; that is the conventional wisdom that I'm going off of. I kept trying to pump more and more watts through a 410 and was really only spinning my wheels. Then I popped on a 2nd cab and there was the volume I was looking for. (this is in bass land beteedub)

Speaker law increases volume by 3db when you double the amount of speakers. Downside to that is when you don't have enough power to push them, they might not be reaching their full potential to begin with. If you're going with a 30w amp, I would suggest an open back 2x12 with high decibel rated speakers. For instance, my EVM-12L loaded 2x12 is much louder than my Celestion 65 loaded 4x12. EVM's are rated 101db, two of them gives me a combined 104db. 65's are rated 96db, four of them gives me 102db. On top of that, my 2x12 is an open back which cuts a hair of low end but adds much more dispersion and fills the room like nothing else. Specially placed in front of a good wall to project against. So, essentially, my 50-60 watt amps are just as loud, if not louder at times, than my 100w amps.

So look out for speakers rated above 100db if you're looking for volume with a low watt amp. Eminence has a lot of them. Good luck.

Great info!!! I was thinking the sound I was looking for was gonna wind up being a closed back cab but I think I can have workarounds to experiment; specifically Avatar offers a closed back adaptation kit (legitimately should make my own but I'm not tooled up for carpentry work).

Number of speakers doesn't affect volume. The biggest factor affecting volume is speaker efficiency, and the frequency curve of the speaker. One thing to consider is how much speaker breakup you want. That is, the cone distorting the sound when pushed hard. I hate it, but plenty of good sounds utilise it.

I say this in all threads, but consider getting a 0.5-2 watt head for home, and a 50 watter for gigs. I have a two watt head and can't crank it at home. A 2x12 is a great idea, easy to move from home to gigs, and if you get it up on a crate or orient it vertically you don't really notice that much of a difference from a 412.

The idea of the 2x12 is that if it winds up not being loud enough,...I'm not opposed to adding a second one. But this was only before the assertion that adding a second speaker cab may only actually yield a volume increase of 3db.

Speaker efficiency has always been a hard concept for me to grasp and it's usually what rears up and sends TB speaker cab threads into a fit. Too many numbers and science. I get what efficiency is in the real world as applies to work and what not; so I can deduce a little bit, but I still need it dumbed down a bit.

Is a bassier freq curve less efficient than mid or treble heavy curve? Are the wattage and decibel ratings a result of speaker efficiency?

Also one thing. And it's the underpowering thing (another sore subject, sorry). Should I be sourcing speakers that have an RMS wattage rating near to that of the amp? If so and I'm going with a 2x12 (with the potential of adding another 2x12) is the power split between speakers? I'm inclined that it is,...but am happy to stand corrected.

I could be looking into the OR50 but it's $500 more. The only other amps I've looked into have been from Blackstar but they just seem too generic; either way I could see the HT-1 fitting the bill if I went the route your are suggesting with having a 50 watt gig amp and 1 watt home amp. Beyond that there is the JCM or a Dual Rec; but those choices seem to obvious.

I would not be opposed to something from Dunwich or Hovercraft either, but I haven't even begun to think about pricing something like that out.

[warwick.hoy]

Also; it would seem that Guitar struggles less to be heard than bass and vocals.

And I'm just in the starting a project from scratch so I do intend to exercise some discipline as far as gearing up for the project. So getting the other players tooled up in such a way that there is a cohesive sound. If that means buying two amps and letting the second guitarist use my stuff as well as letting the bassist use my Ampeg SVT; I'm down.

At this point I'm still in the gathering of players/putting together of songs mode so leaving the house is in the future as is saving up and buying gear. I figured I'd get the wheels moving early though.

[dubkitty]

I dunno about the theory involved...all i know is that when i take a 12-15W amp and run it through a 2x12 it's loud enough to get up over a non-thrashing drummer. more speakers move more air, and more air moving = more apparent volume. just compare a 1x12 vs. a 2x12 of the same combo amp model.

if i was buying a cabinet today i'd get one of the "convertible" ones with the removable back panel, which allows closed- or open-back use.

[SmallEQ]

Number of speakers doesn't affect volume. The biggest factor affecting volume is speaker efficiency, and the frequency curve of the speaker.

All things being equal, If you add an additional speaker of the same relative efficiency (ideally the same driver) you will definitely get more volume.

[goroth]

More speakers will give more apparent volume, but you measure the max sound in db from 1 cab or 100 cabs and it will be the same.

Speaker efficiency is easy -it is a measure of how good your speaker is at converting the signal you're feeding it to loud noises. It is measured in spl, how noisy is a given signal at a given distance from the speaker. More spl = more noise!

Frequency response: the human ear does not hear all frequencies equally. Not surprisingly, we are better at hearing the frequencies around the normal range of a human voice - right where the mids are in a typical (treble) guitar signal. A speaker with a large mid hump will be perceived as louder than a speaker with a less prominent mid range.

Getting a guitar to sit well in the mix is tricky because it is competing with your vocals and most of the drums for the same space. Getting a bass to sit well is theoretically easier but is generally made impossible by idiot sound guys and the aforementioned guitarists
It is also tricky as you often have another guitarist trying to be heard as well haha.

Speaker wattage: the combined wattage of the speakers in the cab should in general not be less than the amp. More is no probs at all.

Get a clean, modern speaker. Eminence have a bunch of good stuff - Texas heat, swamp thing (?? That handles a few watts doesn't it?) or if you have cash over grab an EV. The fact that all of these speakers break up late will give you lots of volume, although if you want sabbathy doom sound you might want a less efficient vintage speaker - half of why sabbath is so brutal is just the sound of gear being murdered by volume!

[warwick.hoy]

Word;

And I'm realizing that I really want to experience power tube saturation. I've heard about it and tried to achieve it with my SVT but my bandmates seemed to appreciate when I didn't do that.

So I'm almost inclined to gun for an underpowered amp for that. Or perhaps I'm just justifying being cheap.

Cleans can fuck off.

[goroth]

Cleans?

Does not compute.

What sounds you after?

[warwick.hoy]

High Gain; Agro/Filth.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6gL2FIFiVg[/youtube]

[goroth]

Ok, I'm way out of my depth there gear wise.
Doom Room.

[Ancient Astronaught]

High Gain; Agro/Filth.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6gL2FIFiVg[/youtube]

Every time I've seen them they've been using either Orange or Marshall 4x12 cab's with 50-60 watt amp's (Orange or peavey mainly). Hopefully that helps.

[GardenoftheDead]

Word;

And I'm realizing that I really want to experience power tube saturation. I've heard about it and tried to achieve it with my SVT but my bandmates seemed to appreciate when I didn't do that.

So I'm almost inclined to gun for an underpowered amp for that. Or perhaps I'm just justifying being cheap.

Cleans can fuck off.

Your bandmates aren't going to like you doing power tube saturation with any amp really.