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Topic: Wattage |
Howard Tate
From:
Leesville, Louisiana, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 20 Jul 2009 8:41 am |
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| I'm curious, I know the methods of measuring wattage has changed, I wonder how many watts it would take today to equal the power of the old Twin Reverb amps? |
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Bill Duncan
From:
Lenoir, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 20 Jul 2009 9:16 am
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Wattage is a measure of power, it's still the same, still measured the same.
The usable power available is a matter of how much distortion is acceptable. If it's just raw power you want in an amp, that can be cheap. When you start wanting lots of power and little distortion it starts to get expensive.
I believe the vintage Twins were rated at 85 watts.
_________________
You can observe a lot just by looking |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 20 Jul 2009 11:23 am
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I have read that the wattage painted on the chassis at the speaker jack of vintage Fenders (85, 100, 135 for various Twin models) was the minimum power handling capabilities recommended for speakers for use with the amp. The actual output of the amps was slightly less than that.
If you are talking about comparing vintage tube Twins with modern solid-state steel amps, my practical experience has been that a 135 watt Twin is about as loud as a Peavey 200 watt NV400. But that's just a rough approximation by ear, not a technical measurement. |
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Gary Jones
From:
Mount Vernon, Wa
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Posted 20 Jul 2009 12:18 pm
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No, Howard is right
Up until around the mid-1960's amplifiers were rated at peak power, rather than RMS, so that in the literature a Fender Twin-Reverb was rated at 180 to 200 Watts ( I do not remember the exact number)
I remember when I got my Sears 1483 bass amp in 1965 it was listed as being "150 Watts", when actually it was about 40 Watts RMS, so that convention was used by all amp makers, as far as I know.
After 1967 (ish) amp started to be rated in RMS power, as we are all familiar with today.
Bill Duncan answered your question correctly when he said that the vintage Twin Reverb amps were 85 Watts RMS.
There are many ways to measure power as in: average power, peak power, peak-to-peak power, RMS power, peak envelope power, etc, etc ......
We can see just in the limited electronic scope of tube guitar amplifiers that over the years the means of expressing output power have changed, with drastically different numbers as the result. For a while it got to be confusing as to what the actual output power of any amplifier was.
Here is a portion of a Fender catalog from 1968, when they were listing both RMS and peak power ratings.
Gary Jones |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 20 Jul 2009 3:51 pm
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| Well yeah, you have to compare apples to apples, rms to rms. |
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Bill Duncan
From:
Lenoir, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 21 Jul 2009 4:23 am
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Wattage hasn't changed, it's still the way a measure of power is stated. When you rate the wattage at rms, or what ever, it's sort of like stating at what rpm a car engine gives a rated horsepower, (wattage).
_________________
You can observe a lot just by looking |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 21 Jul 2009 7:48 am
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"Peak power" ratings for audio amps are, for all intents, a joke. They're not standardized, and you can pretty much claim anyhing you want. I've seen "boom box" radios (that run on flashlight batteries) claim they have "200 watts peak available power". This is despite the ratings of the components that were in the radio, whose design-center values were more like 10 watts. Fender, like most other companies, jumped on the "peak rating" bandwagon merely so they wouldn't lose sales based on advertising lies that the cheaper amp companies used. In fact, Fender made it a policy for many years not to advertise power ratings of their amps. Since probably not one in one-hundred players ever even uses the maximum power of their amp, the ratings game is little becomes little more than talk.
When dealing with audio amps - other than R.M.S., all the other ratings - "peak power", "peak music power", "peak output power", "peak rated power", "peak program power", "peak effective power", and all the rest of the "peak" designations are bullhockey...merely smoke and mirrors to make you think you're getting something you're really not.  |
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Gary Jones
From:
Mount Vernon, Wa
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Posted 21 Jul 2009 11:42 am
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Donny, I agree, peak power ratings are a marketing device, and don't really mean anything. Here is a link to a humorous article about the point you bring up concerning PMPO (peak music power output.)
http://sound.westhost.com/power.htm
Keep in mind that this article is directed more towards home stereo audio components, but the basic facts still hold up to guitar amplification.
OK, I promise to shut up now, and not discuss this any more.
Gary Jones |
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