10" speaker bass combos

100w RMS will struggle against an energetic drummer.

Tony Butler of Big Country used to say, see what wattage the guitarists in the band are using and multiply that figure by four.

Be aware that digital Class D watts are not nearly as loud as big, ol' solid state watts. 

Ibanez Promethean 5110. 250W into the internal speaker or 500W with an extension cab. Under 30lb including a neat nylon shoulder bag.

Unfortunately I've just sold mine or I would offer it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it*, it's a great amp, but I just wasn't using it... and I had the head version as well, with a bigger cabinet.

The 5110 is the original version - there's a newer one (3110) which is nowhere near as good.

(*Not now - the original speaker failed, but I replaced it with a neodymium 300W Celestion, which made it even lighter.)

ecc83 said:

... the Harkte 12" combo he uses is a PITA to transport in the drummers car.

Drummers have a lot of gear. Tell him to put his combo in someone else's car.

What Whistler said.

Unless the drummer drives a vast estate car and the guitarist drives a FIAT 500, it would make better sense for the two stringed instrumentalists to travel together.

Here's a diddy amp from a trusted source. It's a 17 pound 40cm box with an 8" speaker with 200w. I've seen these used on bigish local stages, the DI works just the same as a big amp.

https://peavey.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/119208_37654-600x709.jpg

Al_Nico said:

Here's a diddy amp from a trusted source. It's a 17 pound 40cm box with an 8" speaker with 200w. I've seen these used on bigish local stages, the DI works just the same as a big amp.

https://peavey.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/119208_37654-600x709.jpg

Here's a thought - I use a tc electronic BAM200 bass amp head. The DI out goes to the sound desk. If your son's drummer wanted he could either get a feed from the desk with the bass in it or the headphone out on the amp could send a signal to the drummer's in-ear or monitor. You can see by the size of my mobile that this thing is small enough to go in my gig bag. I have the smallest, 200w amp but there are larger, more powerful bass heads to be had.

Edit: I forgot to add that there is also a speaker output on this amp, so a speaker could also be used - although you can use either the speaker or headphones output, not both at the same time.

ecc83 said:

"Be aware that digital Class D watts are not nearly as loud as big, ol' solid state watts." Careless (and a  bit silly) talk costs jobs.

But is actually true in the real world of perceived volume vs rated output power. You can measure the amp’s output into a dummy load at a specified THD and all that, but take it to a gig and put it in a mix, and a Class D/SMPS amp just doesn’t sound as loud as an old-school Class AB/linear-PS of the same power rating.

I think the reason is to do with output damping and power supply regulation - counterintuitively, the ‘better’ these are, the *worse* the amp performs - because it’s actually the dynamics caused by low damping and power supply variation which enable an amp to punch through in a mix. Valve amps are even more exaggerated, with a couple of other reasons too.

My experience is that a rough rule of thumb is that if you’re used to valve amp of a rated power, to achieve the same volume in a mix (even clean, ignoring the volume of an overdriven valve power stage for this) you will need twice the power in Class AB/linear solid state, and twice again for either Class D *or* SMPS - ie eight times as much power with Class D and SMPS as a valve amp.

The little Promethean 500W amp I’ve just sold was actually no louder than my old solid-state Peavey Century 100W through the same 4-ohm cab… and a 50W valve Fender Bassman is still louder! Really. Though admittedly slightly - but not excessively - overdriven at that volume.

It even surprised me a bit when I compared them, and I knew roughly what to expect. Admittedly the cab was a 600W (I think) 4x10”, so thermal compression could be an issue with the 500W amp, but not with the 50W or 100W ones.

ecc83 said:

Oooo! Neato! But I have read of concerns about TE's reliability...anything known ICBM?

Dave.

No experience of reliability unfortunately. True what @ecc83 says in that the output measurements of class D amps are misleading compared to class A amps. I recon divide by 10 and it'll give a better comparison, so the 200w class D amp would move air like a strong 20w class A amp.

If you get a 20w class A combo you might report it's surprisingly loud, like a modern 200w combo? It will be heavier tho :)

ecc83 said:

First of, the "class" of the amplifier does not matter, if it puts 100 watts sine into a specified load then it IS a "100W" amplifier. So where does the subjective loudness loss come from? IMO the power supply.

With few exceptions, linear sstate amps use an unregulated 50Hz supply. This means the caps are charged to a higher voltage than is needed to deliver the rated power output because the voltage will droop under load.

The upside of this fact is that the very short term power delivery of the amp is quite a bit higher than its continuos rating.

I recall that ICBM is familiar with two Blackstar ID60 amps? He has told me in the past that they might not be as loud as many 50W valve amps but they do hold up well against some. Those amplifiers are class D but use conventional power transformers. (are they still going BTW?)

The second factor is speaker impedance. In the early days of 'D' the amps were very 'load sensitive' it seemed? Max power was only delivered into 4 Ohms and fell off more rapidly above that than even linear sstate amps which are themselves worse than valves. It is interesting to note that at least two of the 100W "pedal" amps now around quote 8 Ohms as the minimum load impedance. It seems the circuits have been optimized for a higher impedance? Speakers of course are only 8 Ohms at one frequency and loss of drive at higher values equates to loss of volume.

Yes and no...

I'm completely accepting that an amp of whatever class and power supply type is genuinely the claimed output when measured under proper test conditions - dummy load, continuous sine wave signal, maximum clean power at a specified THD. That's not the question - I've measured several modern amps and found they do indeed put out the claimed power. But they still don't sound equivalently loud under real-world band conditions.

I agree that a large part of the difference is the power supply, but it's not the whole story - even with SMPS, Class AB amps sound louder - I suspect the rest is mostly the higher damping factor of typical Class D power stages. And those Blackstar ID series output stages are actually significantly *more* powerful than the claimed rating, which is still cheating really, but (for once!) in the right direction ;).

Yes, it's true that the power fall-off of Class D/SMPS amps is worse even than Class AB/linear - exactly because the power supply is so well-regulated, the reduction is linear with rising impedance - ie double the impedance, half the power (as opposed to about 60-70% with Class AB/linear). But the bass amps I've compared have all been through the same cabinet, a 4-ohm Ampeg 4x10" at the practice room my band uses.

I agree it seems very strange when you look at the figures, but it's not just my opinion - the rest of the band noticed it too, if anything even more than I did. It was almost surreal that the 50W Fender Bassman was actually louder than the 500W Ibanez Promethean... but true.

(Note for @OilCityPickups - the Promethean was still loud enough to compete with a drummer! :) Even through its internal speaker - it's amazing for a 1x10" combo... just not as old-school punk rock as a Fender Bassman ;).)