Amplifier how many watts do i need

Thus, again watts is a pretty good range for a dedicated practice amp. The right practice amp is one that sounds good and inspires you to play. Tube, solid-state or digital amps are all good options for home use. In my opinion, small digital modeling amplifiers make outstanding practice amps.

In fact, my practice amp is a Peavey Vypyr. Other brands that make great modeling amps include Fender, Line 6, and Vox.

These little amps sound good and have a ton of different effects and amp models to mess around with. The benefit here is that you can still use an array of different sounds when practicing without having to set up your effects pedals or muck with different amps for different tones.

You have it all in one little box, available with the push of a button. I also like small-wattage tube amps for practice settings. While they are much less flexible than modeling amps, they do bring some amazing tone to the table. The Marshall DSL5C, for example, is a 5-watt amp capable of that awesome Marshall growl without bringing the roof down. If your band has a drummer, especially one with heavy hands, my recommendation is at least 40 watts tube, or at least watts solid-state.

If you play with a rock band you need to play loud. An acoustic drum kit makes a racket, and you need to be heard. Also consider whether you have another guitarist in your band, and what kind of firepower they are bringing. Keep these points in mind when choosing an amp for your band situation. A watt tube amp will give you plenty of volume and work hard enough to bring out the best tone.

In this case, choose at least a watt solid-state amp. This is also why guitarists looking for loud, clean tones, such as jazz players, prefer powerful solid-state amps like the Roland JC And, this is why rock players prefer tube amps that heat up at high volumes, like the Marshall DSL If you play in a band the amp you use for gigging will probably be the same amp you use for rehearsal.

While you need to have enough power to be heard when you are rehearsing with your band when you play live you will have the benefit of sound reinforcement.

What this means is you can choose any wattage you want for a gigging amp, as long as it gets the sound you need. Some players like to use smaller, low-wattage amps for gigging because they are easier to transport and sound great.

Having lugged a watt head and 4x12 cabinet to more places than I can remember, I certainly see the value in this approach. Of course, this also depends on the type of band you play in, and how you manage your sound. If you play small venues and you do your own sound reinforcement, you may use a small PA for vocals and a few other things but rely on your instrument amplifiers for the rest of the sound. So, what follows is intended for guitarists going into the studio for the first time, or those recording at home.

There are two ways to go about recording your guitar sound. Many amps, especially those with digital technology, feature line-out functions, often with speaker emulation. The second method, one which old-school me tends to prefer, involves using a microphone or several microphones much in the same way you would for a live performance. Here the wattage of your guitar amp is going to matter for many of the reasons already discussed in this article. I think the basic problem is my year-old amp is on the fritz.

You could check the wires on the cartridge — make sure all the tiny connectors are fully pushed home. Also, is the record deck plugged into the phono input, as you must use phono only for record players… all other items can be used on any of the inputs.

Do you get a loud crackling noise as you turn the volume knob? This is usually dust in the volume control pot. Search for: Search Button. Paul started the Home Cinema Guide to help less-experienced users get the most out of today's audio-visual technology. He has worked as a sound, lighting and audio-visual engineer for around 20 years. At home, he has spent more time than is probably healthy installing, configuring, testing, de-rigging, fixing, tweaking, re-installing again and sometimes using various pieces of hi-fi and home cinema equipment.

I link to products I like. I am a neophyte in this area and need some expert help. Do I really need watts for these babies? If so, it makes replacing my watt integrated amplifier that is kinda on the fritz a must. Hope that helps. Clearly, the peaks require far more power than the average levels. In the calculator's Peak Headroom field, enter 6 dB for rock music that is compressed or limited, or enter 20 to 25 dB for uncompressed live music.

If you can live with some short-term clipping which may be inaudible, enter 10 to 15 dB. This is the distance from the loudspeaker to the farthest listener. If you are using several loudspeakers that extend into the audience, this distance is from the nearest loudspeaker. For example, if the audience is feet deep, and you have speakers at 0 feet and 50 feet, the listener distance is 50 feet. If you don't know this distance, you can make a rough estimate from the typical values below. Be sure to enter the distance in meters m.

Coffee house: 16 to 32 feet 4. Listed below are typical sound pressure levels SPLs for various types of music. The SPL meter was set to C-weighting, slow response. You might want your system to be at least 10 dB above the background noise level to achieve a good signal-to-noise ratio.

The calculations discussed here apply to anechoic or outdoor conditions. If the sound system is inside a venue, the room reverberation will increase the SPL typically by 6 dB. You can use this room gain as extra headroom. Suppose you need to supply watts for peaks, and your speaker's continuous power handling is watts.

A speaker's peak power handling is typically 4 times its continuous power handling. So the speaker can probably handle watts peak.

That means you can use a watt amplifier to drive that speaker -- as long as you use that power for peaks, and do not drive the speaker continuously with watts. In other words, don't turn up the amp so high that it clips.

What if your sound system uses an active crossover and a separate power-amp channel for each driver? Apply the calculator to each driver type. Say you have a 3-way system. Determine the power separately for the subs, midrange drivers and high-frequency drivers. All three types of driver should produce the same SPL at the same distance. Note that horn-loaded drivers tend to have much higher sensitivity than subwoofers, so the horns need less power to produce the same SPL as the subs.

Suppose your sound system has multiple loudspeakers that extend into the audience area. For example: an outdoor festival with speaker clusters on delays every feet, or a set of ceiling-mounted speakers.

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