You know me, I’m a low-wattage amp kind of guy. I find them really versatile and use them in a variety of venues and especially in the studio. But lately, I’ve been playing with a Sebago Sound 100 Watt Double Trouble – it’s a D-style amp – and I can say with confidence that I know what the big amp guys are talking about now. I have to use an attenuator with the amp, but even at lower volumes, there’s a certain thickness to the signal that a low wattage amp just can’t produce naturally.
Now, through the wonders of technology, I’ve been able to EQ low-wattage amps on recordings in such a way to make them sound a lot bigger than they are, but when an amp produces that fatness naturally, all I can say is “Wow!”
Tonight, I brought the amp to my church gig, and just couldn’t believe what I was hearing! The amp sounds great, yes (and I’ll have a full review of it soon), but the sheer power of 100 Watts – even attenuated – was something I hadn’t experienced before. It’s hard to describe what it was like, but there is definitely a certain dynamicism in the tone and – excuse the pun – a power that my low wattage amps just don’t produce.
Does this mean I’ll get rid of my low wattage amps? Absolutely not because they’re just great tools. But I’ll probably be gigging with something more powerful more often than not from now on… 🙂
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As kind of a follow-on to the original article, Jeff Aragaki of Aracom Amps and I spoke this morning, and the real difference-maker between the big amp and small amp – at least to me – is really evident when you have the power tubes in play. In my studio (read: garage), the amp at low gain sounded like any other amp – even my small amps – through a 1 X 12. But when I hooked up the Sebago to my attenuator, and opened up the master volume, all sorts of great things happened in terms of getting a much more complex tone; even clean. So yeah, the power tubes have A LOT to do with the thick tone of a high gain amp.
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You need to come by sometime. I also enjoy a low watt amp (with the right speaker) and thought that alot of the BS about the head and cab setup I heard was total BS. If I found my self having to keep only one amp it would be one of my heads.. It makes me a little ill to even think like that..
There’s a lot of debate over this subject but I’m with you lower wattage amps just don’t have that same juicy tone of higher wattage amps there’s a good reason 100 watters were so popular in the 80’s. I do have to get myself an attenuator of some sort though to enjoy my amp’s true tone.
There really is something to being able to crank up a 100 Watt amp, and an attenuator – mind you, a great attenuator like the Aracom PRX150-Pro – is really the only way to get there, short of a an iso box, which isn’t practical to lug to gigs. When there’s lots of power going through the power tubes, the amp transforms. Without attenuation, and only being able to get to gig volumes, which for most folks is nowhere near cranked, the amp is just well… loud.
While this was the first time I experienced this playing live, I’ve had similar experiences when cranking old high-gain Marshalls in the studio. That was nirvana! 🙂
Exactly what I have been arguing w the little watt single speaker guys, there is a difference w the larger 100 watt heads and the amazing half stack. Wattage is not really about loudness, it is also sonic headroom-bandwidth and fidelity of sound. Bass takes watts only high end requires very little wattage to drive and reproduce. Why does anyone imagine why we use enormous power amp wattage on sound systems? Why not just use a little tiny power amp??? Because they cannot deliver the fidelity.
You can master vol down the larger head, and use an antenuator if you need to (check out the new design in speakers which allow as much as a 9db sound cut the way they have an adjustable mag structure), but no way a small low watt amp can deliver that depth and body of tone or a single speaker, no way, it is NOT opinion it is more a matter of sonic physics.
Sure my half stack is loud (and I am not running a Marshall I have a modifed Carvin V3 which is a very much under rated and versitile head w a 4×12.) but I am not a poser or a teenager going deaf, I am the same age as Satriani, and there is a good reason why little amps are Ok for studio tricks BUT a good ear can hear the lack of depth, presence and bandwidth in a small amp recording.
Live, there is no comparision. No matter what goofing around goes on w Jeff Beck there is always the half stack for the main tones and Satch has 3 of them for his rig. Lee Ritenour the Jazz guy, nothing less than a 100 twin in recording and live uses 2 100 watter twins in stereo and a 100 watter Mesa high gain in the center.
Running a little amp into the PA does does not really improve the narrow focus and tone of the little amp. They are one trick ponies, and if you are trying to run a decent pedal board forget it w a tiny 1 speaker amp. You need at least a 30 twin like a Vox for shear depth of tone and not to clip out with a decent pedal until you want it to.
What I’ve found is that the high-gain amp delivers the bottom end, whereas the lower wattage amp doesn’t have that, which is why I don’t gig with less than a 25 Watt amp, though admittedly, even 25 Watts doesn’t have the headroom. I’m actually waiting for Jeff Aragaki of Aracom Amps to finish his new 50 Watt head. That’ll be my gigging amp from here on out. 🙂
Ahh welcome to the light side.
At the end of the day a high wattage, high gain head with a master volume control is only a tone suck if you don’t know what your doing.
Being able to crank that gain and having 100 percent signal transfer from input stage to the first gain stage gives you a complexity of tone you’ll never get with a non master tiny amp where you’re only letting 50 percent or less of the signal through from the input stage into the first gain stage.
That is why I went in the middle with my last purchase and picked up that 65w Egnater Renegade. To date it is the best amp I have ever owned.
[…] 24, 2010 by GoofyDawg I did a “What is it about…” regarding the tone of a 100-Watt amplifier recently, and while I’m now hooked on […]