Stage Amps. What level of Wattage?

I am looking to buy my first all tube gigging amp and was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on what wattage is required to play small clubs with an enthusiastic drummer. If you could suggest any amps, that would be helpful. Also I would prefer a pretty tough and rugged amp head which has a good build quality that can take a beating. Thanks.

what do you need it to do? If you don't need clean headroom and want wonderful, natural tube drive even a 5 watt, single ended amp through a quality cabinet will cut the mustard in most rock clubs, it will keep up with your drummer on stage as long as you hook it up to efficient/bigger/more speakers than small amps usually come with as combos (my vox ac4hw1 is a beast through a 2x12 loaded with 101dB efficiency celestions), but it will be quiet enough to allow the soundman to put you though the house PA and give the audience a solid mix even if he is inexperienced at sound reinforcement...

If you need headroom for a loud 'n tight clean sound that cuts the drums on stage, then consider a 15 to 40 watt amp. Any more will be overkill unless you are looking at channel switchers that deliver clean, crunch and solo in one package, however, these types of amps only sound good if you can invest major bucks.

Anyway, you need to explain your application better. Are you a pedal guy, do you play bone clean ever, do you want british overdrive or American, do you need tog et that OD from your amp,,, I could go on. without knowing what you are up to I can only tell you how I like to do things which is by no means the only way, nor is it the most cost effective or easiest.

For a bass Head, 100 watts is pretty decent and varied. Of course, 300 is always better. I say go as high as you can afford. Buying the nice gear first saves you from needing to buy 2 or 3 other okay items before realizing you wish you had the best to begin with.

Don't buy gear for only what you need it for now. Buy it for everything you may use it for.

Sadly, the era of the 100w head and 300w cabinet has been phased out by local noise restrictions and the downsizing of demand within live venues. Most bars and small clubs would now prefer no higher than 40w which still delivers your sound, but doesn't "upset the regular clientele". Most local bands are using between 10 and 20w and mixing a front of house presence through a small PA system. My big ole Marshall gear often saw the entire band mic'ed up through FOH with the sound guy finding my levels did not need to be in the mix to punch through. It sounded fine to the punters, but makes for a very sad copy of the set recorded through the live desk.

Don't buy gear for only what you need it for now. Buy it for everything you may use it for.

I would disagree with statement entirely. Buy the best solution you can afford for the band you are in now. If you get a quality amplifier that fits your needs NOW just right when your needs change you can swap it for something that will suit the next project. Or you can just invest in a quality AC30, one of the fawn reissues (HW1 or HW2), which will take care of anything you need pretty much forever unless you are planning to join a modern metal band.

They do come with volume knobs :)

I don't see how a 40w would work with a live drummer.

I look at amps like cars. In this case, the law in an area says the amp go beyond 80db for example or in car terms, the speed limit is 45 in town. I'm not willing to buy a car that can't go faster than 45mph because I MIGHT want to get out on the highway and go out of town. I have no plans for it now but I certainly don't want to be handicapped to the situation when it comes up. Turn the volume knob down and you are within legal limits just as you would be letting off the gas enough to stay within the speed limit.

Aren't volume knobs just amp neutering? I am kidding, and your car reference makes a point. Around town we are limited until highways or speed circuits allow us to open up. There is a guy in my local area who drives a Maserati... only on Sundays, because he has nowhere he can enjoy it locally. Sadly the same goes with amps. If you are not in the big leagues where your stock car of an amp can fully vocalise, are you not simply lugging excess phallus? Before the attacks start on that comment... I have THAT amp. I lug it everywhere and try playing it on 2 or 3(and can work with a live drummer), taking it up to about 5 in a packed venue with mic'ed kit. And I have been told by people I have had interest in working with that "we are not playing stadium rock here. The venue caps noise and has suppressors in place that kill power to the stage.... which is not good for our amps. 40w is ample in a small room, and in a bigger room/ outdoor venue we just mic her up and keep going" Now I know the math is not perfect, but does it measure some kind of reasoning that a 100w amp played on 2, 3 or 4 would match output with a 20, 30 or 40 w amp only a lot bulkier to move around and harder to fit on a small, modern club stage? Surely some genres will push that draw on resources a little and that extra headroom may be required to keep it sounding controlled, but with the OT asking what level of wattage for stage amps, unless you are a band with some serious pull who can play the bigger venues and get around local noise requirements, get yourself a decent, reliable amp with enough power to comfortably do the job, without playing it so low that it cannot do it's job.

The days of 160 lbs. rigs are starting to fade. Companies like Fender are taking the initiative to lighten the load without sacrificing the power and volume. The Fender Rumble 500 V3 is a fine example. Great little amp that you can hold out in front of you with 1 hand. I think they are like 30 pounds for a 15 inch cone combo amp. These things get plenty loud too without distorting.

Headroom should always be taken into consideration as well. I like to be as prepared as possible and when allocating a lot of money to a piece of gear, I like to buy something that will be a Swiss Army Knife. With the Fender, I already had a sweet SWR LA15 as a travel amp it's heavy and when playing with a loud guitar and a drummer, it was distorting at the levels I needed it at. No Bueno. I bought the Fender 500 and didn't get that problem ever again. A lighter package, with more power, and more options. Can't go wrong.

I think it depends on how you view your property as well. I personally would rather have just one or two $2000 instruments that are versatile than to have eight instruments that are all single purpose for $500 a piece. I want that one piece of gear to be able to do anything I need it to and when I acquire that item, other items of it's type lose their sparkle to me.

I wouldn't be all that keen on carrying around a mic set either.

They do come with volume knobs :)

I don't see how a 40w would work with a live drummer.

40 tube watts is LOUD AS HELL for guitar through anything larger than a single 10" speaker unless you are playing a big venue like the bowery ballroom or the electric factory. Even then it is eough because your sound will fill the stage easily, you will have floor wedges to boot and you will be miced up through the PA. In a small venue something like a super reverb will have more clean volume than you need at 3 and the sound man will be asking you to turn down and neuter your tone. You are a bassist and need about 3 to 4 times the wattage of the guitarist because you occupy a frequency range with long waves that are more difficult to reproduce. This is probably where you are getting your ideas. If you want a solid, clean tube bass sound in a small club, 100 watts is the lowest you can go and only if you have a really efficient speaker setup (though you will probably get extra reinforcement via DI through the PA if the venue is remotely good).

I look at amps like cars. In this case, the law in an area says the amp go beyond 80db for example or in car terms, the speed limit is 45 in town. I'm not willing to buy a car that can't go faster than 45mph because I MIGHT want to get out on the highway and go out of town. I have no plans for it now but I certainly don't want to be handicapped to the situation when it comes up. Turn the volume knob down and you are within legal limits just as you would be letting off the gas enough to stay within the speed limit.

they make microphones and incredibly efficient PAs for you to reach the cheap seats in a big venue and any big venue will have everything they need to get your sound out there in a balanced and musical way. As long as you have enough power to get your sound on the stage for yourself and any band members who wander away from their floor monitors you are fine. If you get yourself a 100 watt, fixed bias class AB tube amplifier in the fender/marshall mode, even with a master volume the amp is going to sound stiff unless it is getting a big preamp signal, that is the nature of fixed bias class AB amps. Cathode biased AB is more forgiving and true class A is more forgiving still, but those styles of tube amps can't be made much larger than 30 or 40 watts without running into efficiency issues and heat problems. Tube amplifiers are not cars, though it was a clever analogy. There are also other factors that contribute to loudness apart from wattage. In pure wattage-to volume terms 50 watts is NOT half of 100 watts, 50 watts and 100 watts through the same speaker system actually produces very similar sound pressure levels. 18 to 25 watts is closer to half of 100 watts in dB... oh man, I could go on with the science and also my years of personal experience playing thousands of shows with powerful amps in small venues debunking all the old wisdom put out by amp manufacturers during the volume wars of the 60s and 70s, but its all on the internet at this point or you can just go blast out the soundman at a small club and see if they invite you back! Just trust me, what you're saying makes sense if you are not in possession of the facts. There's stuff to talk about regarding wattage calculations for tbe and solid state, speaker efficiency, its overwhelming, but the long and short of it is that you do not need a ton of tube wattage unless you are the Beatles playing Shea Stadium through the crappy old house PA trying to be heard over 1000s of screaming girls! You can pay for the extra power, but most of the time you will not sue it and will not sound your best as a result. Solid state is a different animal, but I do not feel like explaining all the reasons why. You can look all this stuff up.

Boom and Jim are both right here. If we are talking bass amp, the greater the wattage (headroom), the more clean, undisturbed sound you are delivering to a crowd... If we are talking guitar, most amps reveal their signature sound at a higher level, where playing them softly delivers a thinner sound that lacks the presence of what the amp is capable of.

Boom and Jim are both right here. If we are talking bass amp, the greater the wattage (headroom), the more clean, undisturbed sound you are delivering to a crowd... If we are talking guitar, most amps reveal their signature sound at a higher level, where playing them softly delivers a thinner sound that lacks the presence of what the amp is capable of.

that's all I'm trying to say, I am just a bit preoccupied and not as articulate as usual, though it should also be said that bigger is not always better in all tube bass amps depending on what kind of sound you are shooting for...

anyway, this thread is not about the bass guitar, so who cares about solid-state bass gear? Not the OP who is a guitarist seeking a good 1st tube amp.