Erm. No. Really. I have a 50watt tube amp that I've never been able to turn up beyond 3 at any live venue ever. If I'd been on a really big stage I could do it - go up to 6 and blast my hearing. On those stages you have monitors for that. So I have small amp envy. Not big amp envy.

Seriously, even stadium pros have to weigh up whether it's worth putting up with insane stage volumes in order to crank 100watt amps. I see some folks like Joe Bonnamassa have them perspex shields in front of their amp so that it doesn't raise stage volumes too high.

Huge amps were designed for a reason. Venues were getting bigger and their amps needed more power. That reason died with the development of high powered PA systems in the 70s. You can play to Knebworth stadium with a 5watt Champ and you, and the audience will hear it perfectly.

So the benefit of big amps then becomes:

1. They're crazy heavy to lug around
2. The venue has to be huge if you want to get any power amp drive out of them
3. They can kill your hearing with unnecessarily loud stage volumes - if you rely on amp volume instead of these things called, "monitor speakers".
4. They're critical to get enough volume when you time travel back to 1967 and play in a 2,000 seat theater with a 60watt announcer's PA.

Oh wait. Those aren't advantages. As the guy in the vid says. The magical device called "the microphone" brings you all the volume you need since 1975.

singemonkey wrote: Erm. No. Really. I have a 50watt tube amp that I've never been able to turn up beyond 3 at any live venue ever. If I'd been on a really big stage I could do it - go up to 6 and blast my hearing. On those stages you have monitors for that. So I have small amp envy. Not big amp envy.

Seriously, even stadium pros have to weigh up whether it's worth putting up with insane stage volumes in order to crank 100watt amps. I see some folks like Joe Bonnamassa have them perspex shields in front of their amp so that it doesn't raise stage volumes too high.

Huge amps were designed for a reason. Venues were getting bigger and their amps needed more power. That reason died with the development of high powered PA systems in the 70s. You can play to Knebworth stadium with a 5watt Champ and you, and the audience will hear it perfectly.

So the benefit of big amps then becomes:

1. They're crazy heavy to lug around
2. The venue has to be huge if you want to get any power amp drive out of them
3. They can kill your hearing with unnecessarily loud stage volumes - if you rely on amp volume instead of these things called, "monitor speakers".
4. They're critical to get enough volume when you time travel back to 1967 and play in a 2,000 seat theater with a 60watt announcer's PA.

Oh wait. Those aren't advantages. As the guy in the vid says. The magical device called "the microphone" brings you all the volume you need since 1975.

So, as you just mentioned, Mr. Bonnamassa uses what kind of amps? do you think he would be lugging them around + the perspex shield's you speak of
if he could be using something else?

BTW Bonnamassa has a sig. amp, designed to his specification...it's a nice, big old 100watt.
This man could have any thing built, sourced and designed, and he often makes use of his
name and finances to do exactly that, to get the tone he wants...and he wants a 100watt.

http://www.jbonamassa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15716

You have discredited your own argument.

Want to try again?

i have nothing to add to the jist of the conversation but nice big amps look menacining and mean.....while i may not actually have a use for one i would love to own one to crank every now an again and watch the paint peel off the walls.... something ethereal

in the same vein there is no need for ferrari's or 200 bhp superbikes ...but dayum they are a rush when pushed.... PA's have come a moerofa long way and they great for listening to bands , large amps are great for feeling the music ..yeah yeah i dont quite make sense sometimes...

Guess again. You can use high powered amps to get that sound if you (a) play large enough venues that the quarantined amp is still not to loud and (b) quarantine the amp behind perspex.

For a top end pro like Bonamassa, that's worth doing. Roadies lug his amps. He plays big venues so that the volume of the shielded amp is not too great, and he's far enough from the speaker to save his ears. There's space on stage to set up the shielding.

He is in a position to get every ounce of tone out of those amps without overwhelming the venue or damaging his hearing. How many of us are? Are you Vick?

I think it's not about power but tone . And as we all know our tube amps all have a sweet spot . Where it's worth the effort to drag to gigs to get that sound your amp offers . And i'm writing this 20 min before i start a gig and i dragged in my tube amp where i could have just used my modeler and saved a trip to car but i just love that tone i get from the amp so yes if in my case that tone comes from a 15 watt amp or if some rocker needs the tone of 100 watt stack so be it . But in my books short of a kemper type modeling device that seems to be the first modeler to get it right . In my books Tube amps equal tone

singemonkey wrote: Guess again. You can use high powered amps to get that sound if you (a) play large enough venues that the quarantined amp is still not to loud and (b) quarantine the amp behind perspex.

For a top end pro like Bonamassa, that's worth doing. Roadies lug his amps. He plays big venues so that the volume of the shielded amp is not too great, and he's far enough from the speaker to save his ears. There's space on stage to set up the shielding.

He is in a position to get every ounce of tone out of those amps without overwhelming the venue or damaging his hearing. How many of us are? Are you Vick?

The point that I have stated, since the beginning, is that there is a time\place\desire
for these amps, for 100watt amps,5watt amp and everything in between...that's it.

Do you agree or not?

A 50watt 212 would be cool imo. Will drive the speakers as well as a big amp and be around half the volume of a 100watt 412.

Keira WitherKay wrote: I think it's not about power but tone . And as we all know our tube amps all have a sweet spot . Where it's worth the effort to drag to gigs to get that sound your amp offers . And i'm writing this 20 min before i start a gig and i dragged in my tube amp where i could have just used my modeler and saved a trip to car but i just love that tone i get from the amp so yes if in my case that tone comes from a 15 watt amp or if some rocker needs the tone of 100 watt stack so be it . But in my books short of a kemper type modeling device that seems to be the first modeler to get it right . In my books Tube amps equal tone

This is it right here: "...in my case that tone comes from a 15 watt amp or if some rocker needs the tone of 100 watt stack so be it."

Different people, different needs, different desires, different amps...its all good.
The issue I have is with people that refuse to comprehend something so simple.

Singe is right IMO. The need for over 50 Watts in any venue is a thing of the past. PA has changed and improved and and can now do all the heavy lifting while giving the soundman more control to create a better FOH mix.

Those that still use them are being bloody minded about it and are limiting the places they can play - I know for a fact that the Blues Cruise has said they will never have Bonamassa back because he insisted on using two 100W amps which just dumped all over everything else there and cleared out the audience.

I play a Twin BTW - but I never overdrive it and use an attenuator with about 9-12 dB gain reduction. I have never turned it above three and a half without the attenuator (and that was an outdoor gig with 1kW of PA). I'd trade it for a Deluxe in a heartbeat (although I'd probably put in a silicon rectifier for my tone).

Three examples of guitarists I watch live.

Best live tone I've heard from Peter Hanmer is when he uses his Marshall TSL602 2x12 combo, in any venue, even a small venue.
It's a heavy amp and he doesn't like carrying it so these days he goes with his pedalboard into a H&K Red Box into the PA, he still sounds amazing....great guitarist, could make a Roland Micro Cube sound great live.

Mark Beling plays through a Fender Twin with volume on 3.5.
Pedals, Keeley Compressor, Keeley Blues Driver, 1988 RAT, TG Electronics G-System for delay and Chorus.
Went to watch him on Friday night in a VERY SMALL venue, he used a Tele...could be the best live guitar tone I've heard in ages.
Ridiculously good guitarist.

Gavin Morein plays a Les Paul through a 100w Marshall TSL head into a 2x12, in large and small venues.
Compressor pedal up front always on and a bunch of other pedals.
Great tone, great guitarist.

If you arrive at a gig and there's a 100w Marshall or Fender Twin, etc, etc, waiting on the stage you can be sure you'll have great tone and enjoy the gig.
Never seen a guitarist gig with a 5watt amp. ?

so basically we have big amps for those big gigs where you want to impress a guitarist in the front row... seems a bit backward right?

but countless bands have had engineers mess up big amps and small amps live so there is no guarantee that you will sound good with either.
i have found that when the engineer gets your sound right according to the crowd, people compliment your amp, AND i have found people defend my sound when the engineer gets a whole night of mixes wrong with alcohol ears and they come to the front or hear my amp roar on stage. they arent going to defend an amp they can't hear... you'll just be the guy with **** tone. so i will always gig with a bigger amp than i need with an engineer i don't know. and save my back with an engineer i do.

oh and people are big eyes with small ears most of the time. so i guess i side with Vick. if its a war. haha just kidding.

Couple of things.

Firstly, some people want a bigger amp than needed if the sound guy is going to bugger up the mix, in which case you can turn up more so you can hear yourself. The mix in that case will be crap anyway so good tone is of secondary importance.

Secondly, the kind of tone you want goes into the decision regarding the amp size (I'm talking about valve amps, this doesn't apply to the other stuff). A big amp with floorpedals or channel switching is great if:

1. you want your clean sound and your overdrive sound to be at the same volume
2. you like the overdrive/distortion from your pedals
3. you like preamp drive in your amp (sounds much like pedals in general)
4. you switch pedals/channels/patches to get different tones


However, if you're like me and like the sound of a cranked tube amp, not the 'sweet spot' where it drives a little, I mean really cranked to give that amp about to explode type thing and you use the guitar controls instead of patches and channels, then a big amp is going to be a hassle. Unfortunately, cranked like that most 20 watt and over will be much too loud for most gigs through an efficient 2x12. Forget about doing that with anything over 50 watt, ever. Your hearing will get damaged and your audience will hate you. Its uncomfortable playing that loudly, I like the feeling of the vibrations in my body when I play my amp loud like that but only for 30 seconds or so then my ears complain. If you don't feel the pain you've buggered up your ears already.


If you see a guitar player with a 100 watt Marshall or twin and he has distortion going and your ears are not hurting, he/she is not getting power tube drive, that amp can go much louder still. He/She is most likely using drive channel or a pedal or attenuating that amp to a high degree.

ezietsman wrote:
If you see a guitar player with a 100 watt Marshall or twin and he has distortion going and your ears are not hurting, he/she is not getting power tube drive, that amp can go much louder still. He/She is most likely using drive channel or a pedal or attenuating that amp to a high degree.

The guitarists I'm talking about are all using the amps clean channel and pedals for distortion.
You're correct, their amps are not cranked enough to get power tube distortion.

ezietsman wrote:
If you see a guitar player with a 100 watt Marshall or twin and he has distortion going and your ears are not hurting, he/she is not getting power tube drive, that amp can go much louder still. He/She is most likely using drive channel or a pedal or attenuating that amp to a high degree.

Or, if it's a clever 100watt Marshall, you can have power amp distortion at bedroom volumes... 8)

shaunf wrote:

ezietsman wrote:
If you see a guitar player with a 100 watt Marshall or twin and he has distortion going and your ears are not hurting, he/she is not getting power tube drive, that amp can go much louder still. He/She is most likely using drive channel or a pedal or attenuating that amp to a high degree.

Or, if it's a clever 100watt Marshall, you can have power amp distortion at bedroom volumes... 8)

indeed. Amps with vvr is great but last time i brought up the subject i was told people doesn't like tone sucking solid state stuff in their precious amps?

ezietsman wrote:indeed. Amps with vvr is great but last time i brought up the subject i was told people doesn't like tone sucking solid state stuff in their precious amps?

You talking about Karel's thread?

ezietsman wrote:

shaunf wrote:

ezietsman wrote:
If you see a guitar player with a 100 watt Marshall or twin and he has distortion going and your ears are not hurting, he/she is not getting power tube drive, that amp can go much louder still. He/She is most likely using drive channel or a pedal or attenuating that amp to a high degree.

Or, if it's a clever 100watt Marshall, you can have power amp distortion at bedroom volumes... 8)

indeed. Amps with vvr is great but last time i brought up the subject i was told people doesn't like tone sucking solid state stuff in their precious amps?

There's no pleasing some people. They will find something to complain about even when there isn't anything.

All I know is that the 100 watt half stack I bought 7 months ago is the most versatile amp I've ever owned. I can play it at anytime, as loud as is comfortable during the day, or down low late at night or with my kids sleeping in the next room, and always with the master volume at over 7 with the power valves cooking and sounding great. As such it sees use almost every day. I couldn't be happier. Now try that with even a 5 watter....

Yep. Exactly. That is why my 18 watt has vvr too. Without it i won't be able to play it the way its meant to be played. All amps should have it. Even the non believers will use it because well, its awesome.

I think the problem there is that an amp that's attenuated say, 15% will sound closer to its best than an amp that's attenuated 65%. If there's a tone-sucking element, it affects more powerful amps more - because obviously you have to be heavier handed with the attenuation to hit the same volume.

I just frankly think it's perverse to run these amps - famous for their massive power amp overdrive - clean, and then use floorpedals to put the drive back in. You're running a solid state preamp (the pedal) for all your drive and merely using your classic 100watt Hi-Watt head to boost the volume and give it some warmth. An amp like that is capable of giving you a vastly superior, true tube overdrive - but only at face removing volumes or heavily attenuated.

Those amps rightly didn't become famous for those master-volume or floorpedal-driven sounds. That's why, having only heard 100watt amps played with master volume, pre-amp distortion, or with the inevitable overdrive pedal in front of the amp playing clean, I was blown away to hear a <20watt amp cranked. Suddenly, there was the sound I heard on records. Live at Leeds, Back in Black, The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, The Song Remains the Same, Get Yer Ya-Yas Out, Fleetwood Mac at the Boston Tea Party.

They were not running clean amps with pedals. They used fuzz pedals to get zany sounds, and boosters to give them a lift, but not the way big amp-owners now use overdrive pedals to simulate that sound of the amp played beyond a volume their venues can handle. Nor were they cranking the pre-amps alone. Those amps sound totally different with the power amp going full tilt. And what they sound a helluva lot like is a 20watt amp going full tilt. But they sound nothing like a 100watt with a tubescreamer in front of it.

And the magic of being able to totally control your overdrive with a flick of the volume knob (and I have a heralded floorpedal which is advertised as one of the most "dynamic" and tube like out there, and it doesn't come close to giving me that ability to go from pure roar to chimey clean with quarter turn of the knob). Suddenly your overdrive pedal is your guitar volume knob - and your control is vastly enhanced. The drive pedals just stay at home. Because:

They were only there to sound like a cranked tube amp anyway