Well I have 2 Magellan 350 heads and 3 BA10-2 cabs. I used 2 cab stacks a few times when we have 300+ I n the audience, I used 3 cab stacks twice but technically, once and the volume knob has never seen the other side of 1 o’clock. The rest of the time I just use one.
People thought that I plug my bass into the house PAs because the combo is so tiny.
I also use the Acoustic Array Pro from time to time especially when we have some unplugged setlist and I bring my EUB, Bongo or Fretless. They sound so awesome.
This falls into the category of perceptibly true but scientifically false. A watt is a watt. However, the conditions under which that watt is measured is complicated and can vary. There’s no requirement for how a manufacturer measures watts and outside of pro systems, they rarely tell you.
They will turn an analogue amp up to as much distortion as they think they can get away with being a “clean” signal and call that the average level. Then they will add 6 dB to that and call it peak level. And they used to do it with pink noise (with a 6 dB crest factor, hence the 6 dB to peak prediction).
But then the digital amp people looked at that and said, “Hey we can produce power all the way up to peak level clean and sustain it longer than an analogue amp can. And by the way, we play music not pink noise so that’s too conservative and doesn’t show off our strengths.” But with digital amps there’s no going over and getting some pleasant distortion. It works until it doesn’t and then it’s intolerable. So they write their spec all the way up to the brick wall, max max max power and no more and maybe using a more musical test signal than pink noise. A 500 watt peak or more digital amp may possibly have the same perceptible power output as a 125 Watt average power output analogue amp, if we keep with the idea of a 6 dB spread between peak and average. The Katana only uses a 3 dB spread, 160 average and 300 peak.
All of this is just unusable information anyway because it’s so inconsistent. I had a Tonehammer 350 with EXACTLY the same digital power stage as another manufacturer’s claimed 500. And that power stage was measured at European AC outlet voltage levels. They put out somewhat less than that on 120V in the US.
Even more complicated and easily confused in audio. If we are just talking about a sine wave pure tone, no big deal. Peak is as high as the sine wave ever gets. RMS represents the “average” across the entire wave.
But music isn’t just a sine wave. It’s a whole series of multiple sine waves changing constantly in frequency and duration and dynamics. So what signal do you say represents the actual use of the device the best in a broad sense?
The Audio Engineering Society has weighed in on this answer and has published standards, but they are voluntary to follow.
Sorry for the side overly tech stuff. At the risk of actually contributing . . .
I have an Aguilar SL410 cabinet only, 4 Ohms, 50 pounds, 800 Watts and love it, but I don’t gig so I never have to take it anywhere. I also see that 5 years of inflation means I’d never be buying it today. It’s powered by a Genz-Benz Streamliner 900 at 6.5 pounds. Same “Genz” as the current Genzler brand. If I ever do leave the house I’ll never have to think about power or low frequency or tight mid response as long as I can get a cart anywhere close to the stage. For friend jams I take the Rumble 100.
The 210 version of that is 35 pounds.
That Barefaced Super Mini T above looks interesting. It’s only 21 pounds and they actually publish specs. Could be getting 3 dB over an Eminence component cabinet without changing the amp at all.
@DaveT the Super Mini T sound is mind blowing. I’d imagine you’d have a similar experience with the Genzler Bass Array 12”. The Barefaced can handle 600W, the Genzler 400W. According to Barefaced, their 1-12” cabs can match any 2-12” cab out there, but I don’t have one to compare to.
I actually brought the Genzler Bass Array 12 home for a day and loved it too for its size. It doesn’t have the same sound I like in the 410, but if I started leaving the house I think that and the Barefaced would be good choices.
I’ve never understood how that number continues to get published or even how they came up with it to begin with. Here’s a chance to try a blind test on some headphones to see what you can hear.
3dB is doubling the power output to the speakers. It’s absolutely quite noticeably louder and you can easily test this yourself in any DAW. It’s not the “smallest increment” unless your hearing is truly bad.
Since the apparent volume is related to the power times the projected speaker area, i.e as a squared value, everything else being equal it doubles roughly every 10dB.
Well, 3 db swing either side of a mid-bass signal can be noticeable in the mix. 3 db at the Max end not so much. 3 db in the final mix would either make you a zero of Hero,
