# How loud is 100watts solid state enough for?



## Klaptrap (Dec 27, 2013)

So I'm looking at the Randall RG1003h which is 100w, and i was wondering how loud would it be enough for? Clubs, halls, the colosseum?

And as a general rule for solid state volume and wattage, how loud is 100w ss?

Cheers guys, merry christmas and happy new year!


----------



## pabobo (Dec 27, 2013)

Yes, it should be fine.
Two factors affecting the volume of the amp will be...
1) How manufacturer measures Watts: Some manufacturers seem to have bigger watts than others, but on an ss amp of this size you should be fine for all venues.
2) Size of guitarists ego: I've seen guitarists turn up their amp so much that the PA man didn't bother to mike them up, and eventually some of the crowd had to ask mr. ego to turn down so they could hear the rest of the band through the PA - Warning - if this is you then there is never an amp large enough 

Final word is to make sure you get a cab with the appropriate Ohms ratings - If you get an 8 Ohm cab when a 4 Ohm is required then you are nearly halving the output of your amp. If you get too low ohms then your amp can literally go into melt down.

I have a very old Fender M80 ss that is plenty loud enough for gigs on about 3. I also have a stereo Gallian Krueger 2x50w which can knock down walls when plugged into the correctly Ohm'd cab.

That amp should be plenty, when you do play carnegie then they are likely to mike you up anyway.

Cheers, P.


----------



## VBCheeseGrater (Dec 27, 2013)

Yup agree with above poster ^^^. 100 watts should be plenty. If it's not loud enough for local gigs at clubs/bars, someone in your band is being obnoxious (whether they know it or not) and needs to turn down.

If you're going for a super scooped tone (read: mids at 1) in a death metal band, i could see it maybe falling a bit short, but other than that, should be plenty.

Also keep in mind - your cab can easily double the volume based on the speaker efficiency. for instance A V30 speaker will be way louder than a rocket 50 based on the sensitivity rating.


----------



## Necris (Dec 27, 2013)

100 watts is plenty, in fact for the average gig it's probably overkill (I say this as someone with a 200w amp sitting next to him ).
Two important things:
*There is no such thing as "Tube Watts" and "Solid State Watts".*
*
Higher Wattage =/= Noticeably Higher Volume*


Some 100w tube amps don't actually put out a full 100w, some 100w Solid State amps don't put out a full 100w.

A 100 watt amp is only 3db louder than a 50 watt amp, + or - 3db is a barely noticeable difference in volume to the the average human ear, so the difference between an amp putting out 100 watts and one putting out 85 (or whatever) would likely be imperceptible. The 100 watt just has more clean headroom.


----------



## mbardu (Dec 27, 2013)

If we are picky with terminology there is no such thing as 100 watts tube vs solid state. 

But in practice, in perceived volume, yes there is. 

I've been limited with a 100w solid state before, not so much with even a 30w full tube amp. This was for an average size room, with maybe ~150 people audience. And yes it was micced into the console too, but there was still a noticeable difference.


----------



## Necris (Dec 27, 2013)

^ There are reasons why a tube amp can seem louder, certainly, but that is outside of the scope of his main question, which is essentially "is my amp powerful enough for most gigs?" To which the answer is "yes".



> If we are picky with terminology there is no such thing as 100 watts tube vs solid state.
> But in practice, in perceived volume, yes there is.


In certain cases, in perceived volume, yes. In measured volume no. 


*Some interesting stuff from talkbass on that subject:*


> "When an amplifier is unable to deliver required voltage or current, by using a sensitive oscilloscope at its output, we would see that the waveform peaks are clipped. This clipping, in turn, generates harmonic distortion. This harmonic distortion contains only odd-order harmonics if the clipping is symmetrical and even-order harmonics if clipping is asymmetrical. As a rule, all amplifiers when clipping produce both odd and even harmonic output. However, transistor amplifiers produce largely odd-order harmonics, while tube amplifiers produce largely even-order harmonics. All these harmonics increase in amplitude with higher degrees of clipping, resulting in more and more audible distortion of the audio signal. While amplifiers based on semiconductors, with increased odd harmonics, produce ear-piercing sound, many tube amplifiers, when driven above their capabilities, have so called "soft" clipping..." - Simon Thacher, Ph.D., Spectron Audio
> 
> We're not done yet:
> 
> ...


Tube Watts vs. Solid State Watts, Conversion? - Page 4 - TalkBass Forums


----------



## Klaptrap (Dec 27, 2013)

Thanks guys, you make my life so much easier


----------



## Riffer Madness (Dec 27, 2013)

Ive read that it takes 10x the watts to double the volume. ie, 100w is twice as loud as 10w.

Just someting ive come across googling. Not sure how accurate that is.

Merry x-mass to you too


----------



## Hollowway (Dec 27, 2013)

100 Watts is solid state enough for anything!


----------



## HaVoC111 (Dec 29, 2013)

Example of how loud a 100w solid state amp can be. On 4 volume, window panels shake and walls crack (the sound, not actually) very audibly. On 10, and I've only done it once, it set off many car alarms up to several blocks away, with the windows and doors closed on the house. I only hit one chord. 100 is more than plenty for a guitar amp.


----------



## Russbuss777 (Dec 29, 2013)

In my opinion your wattage is only half the battle (if not less). 

A crucial part of your guitar is your tone and eq settings. For example many metal guitarists try and scoop their mids too much that they get lost in a mix so much so that it doesnt matter how powerful your amp is.
evaluate your tone in conjunction with your new head.

I have a 15watt dark terror running into a 4x12 and just because of eq'ing everything right I cut through a mix better than my guitarist who uses a 150watt solid state.


----------



## Russbuss777 (Dec 29, 2013)

But to answer your question 100 watts is perfect


----------



## Primitive Guitarist (Dec 29, 2013)

Its Plenty loud.
Remember there is a reason live sound techs use microphones....


----------



## InfinityCollision (Dec 29, 2013)

Riffer Madness said:


> Ive read that it takes 10x the watts to double the volume. ie, 100w is twice as loud as 10w.
> 
> Just someting ive come across googling. Not sure how accurate that is.
> 
> Merry x-mass to you too



It's a good rule of thumb when not talking about specific models.

Here's how I look at power ratings: anywhere I _need_ to push 100W, I'm likely to be mic'd up and thus the extra power is only increasing my power amp headroom (which can be good or bad depending on how critical power amp distortion or lack thereof is to your sound). If I don't need 100W to fill the room, it's overkill and the same situation occurs. The only time I'd really want high power ratings for the sake of increasing volume is if I was in a larger venue with an underpowered PA or no PA at all. If it was just underpowered I'd probably try and take something else out of the PA first... Guitar cabs have terrible dispersion characteristics, so micing up and running the guitar through a PA does wonders for your FOH quality of sound.


----------



## Abaddon9112 (Dec 29, 2013)

HaVoC111 said:


> Example of how loud a 100w solid state amp can be. On 4 volume, window panels shake and walls crack (the sound, not actually) very audibly. On 10, and I've only done it once, it set off many car alarms up to several blocks away, with the windows and doors closed on the house. I only hit one chord. 100 is more than plenty for a guitar amp.



I find the latter very hard to believe. 


But yeah, 100 watts solid state is plenty loud for normal gigging.


----------



## HaVoC111 (Dec 29, 2013)

Abaddon9112 said:


> I find the latter very hard to believe.



Tis true. It was a dumb teenage thing to do in a quiet neighborhood. Also this is from several years ago when everyone had those crappy cobra car alarms that went off if you were breathing too hard near them. Lol


----------



## Svava (Dec 29, 2013)

10 Watt : Kills cats (Bedroom)
25 Watt : Frustrates Drummers (Can't quite get loud enough for them to be happy)
50 Watt : Kills really big cats (Small clubs)
90/100 Watt : Effective against low -> Medium power level demons and zombies within a 50 meter radius (Most gigs)
150 Watt : Destroys zombies and other squires of darkness within a mile radius (Causes eyebrows to evaporate in the first 20 rows of the stadium)
200+ Watt: Lethal to all forces of darkness, suppresses the power of evil within 3 miles (May cause pregnancy during guitar solos as far as the 32nd row)


100 watt is good enough for any gig and too loud for some smaller ones - plus once you get much bigger than a big club room you will definitely be plugged into some kind of PA with your cab mic'd- at which point you just need to make sure your gain is clipping correctly and what wattage you use is a tone choice


----------



## rikomaru (Dec 31, 2013)

^ in the name of toe jam and earl, i officially acknowledge this response and deem it epic!!! Is that too long for a sig?


----------



## Go To Bed Jessica (Jan 1, 2014)

Russbuss777 said:


> A crucial part of your guitar is your tone and eq settings. For example *many metal guitarists try and scoop their mids too much that they get lost in a mix* so much so that it doesnt matter how powerful your amp is.
> evaluate your tone in conjunction with your new head.



This.

Scooping sounds great at home, but as soon as you add a bass and hi-hats your guitar sound is GONE.

There are recordings out there with scooped guitars that sound ok, but it takes some pretty good production know-how to make it work. 

If you are playing in a live situation, you will learn sooner or later that mids are the home of the guitar. If you want to heard distinctly and separately from the bass and drums you will need to use some mids. You can alter the character of your sound by choosing where in the mids you make yourself heard - graphic or parametric EQ is indispensable if you want to play around with this. I like some nice aggressive lower mids in my sound - and thankfully I have the option to EQ my amp that way so I don't need separate EQ. Not everyone will have that luxury though, so an EQ pedal or rack processor can be a really worthwhile investment.


----------



## tyler_faith_08 (Jan 4, 2014)

I also want to chime in on the importance of mids. If you're scooped to a moderate extent, you should be fine. However, once you start to play with a full band with mids that are largely nonexistent, you're fighting a losing battle. The problem that I see with a lot of people who chase any particular tone is that they try to get a sound from an album that's been mixed and mastered and played back through (generally) some really shitty 70s Oldsmobile speakers. The tone that they get and that you get may sound close to your ear, but there often exists a world of difference. 

The majority of setups that I've heard have great potential but have absolutely terrible settings. I've got a friend that has a Mesa DR and all this other fancy digital super rack bs and his tone sounds like a bass guitar and a fuzz pedal shorting out at the same time. There is very little distinction between each note. On the other hand, I have another with a far inferior setup that gets a tone that I'd expect out of someone with a $1800 head. 

People often screw themselves out of great tone because of these things:

- They adjust eq and gain to match post-recording tone
- Modify EQ to achieve the fullness of a song with multi-tracked guitars and a bass guitar even though the user has no bassist
- Think more gain = better = better tone ALWAYS
- Think that the amount of midrange is inversely proportional to the heaviness/badassery of the band
- "saw a picture of so and so's tone stack and it was like that" even though so and so played a fender in recording, a marshall live, and the individual is trying to get the tone with a mesa
- the term "scooped mids" sounds so cool
- they saw an Alexis compressor for a sweet deal and just HAD to get it
- fail to consider a mix with other instruments in a live setting

Don't get me wrong, scooped mids are great TO AN EXTENT, but if you're settings are:
PRE: 10
low: 10
mid: <1
high: 1
presence: 10
POST: 5
distortion pedal: 10
afterburner: engaged
tube screamer: full blast

you're gonna sound like an asshat.

But it is possible to have that awesome, glass shattering, no-....s-given tone with a substantial amount of mids. You just have to find your happy medium between what you're playing through, what everyone else is playing through, and what you're going after. 100w is enough, but your preference in settings can disrupt that. I'd suggest finding an amp that gets the tone you want at a few volume settings so that you have the option of playing through a PA or without. My setup just so happens to sound very nice with the line out. I play with my amp angled back and facing up at me so that I can hear the tone I'm used to at all times while still being able to move around just a little to hear the bass or the drums or whatever else just a little more or less. Again, having that extra midrange means that I can hear myself without putting extra thought into hearing myself and focus on playing more.


----------



## Klaptrap (Jan 5, 2014)

Tyler thanks so much for your words of advice haha, it was a great read.

Fortunately Im not really a 'scooped' player, I was only worried about the tube vs solid state loudness and that question has been answered.

Thank you everyone


----------



## tyler_faith_08 (Jan 5, 2014)

I'm sorry for the rant, it's just that every time I hear or read "solid state", I think "Mesa Dual Rectifier" because my friend that has the Dual Rectifier and Marshall 60 cab has botched his tone _that bad_. FWIW, I played on a Crate SS and a marshall MG (whatever it is) cab when my main rig was stolen a few years back. It held up very well during the show and I could hear myself in a medium sized venue with the post at less than half volume. I also didn't get laid that night (this is before I met my wife) and I blame the tone...


----------



## abandonist (Jan 5, 2014)

Watts aren't a unit of volume measurement. 

It's really that simple.


----------



## tyler_faith_08 (Jan 5, 2014)

abandonist said:


> Watts aren't a unit of volume measurement.
> 
> It's really that simple.



Correct. They're a unit of power. There's a thought... I'm gonna start telling everyone that my amp has 0.13hp because hey, science says it kind of does.


----------

