Hi guys - I learned this info about a year ago, put it to work & I'm enjoying the results.

Most people believe that you measure the Loudness of a Guitar Amp off of Watts. Basically - a solid state amp with 100 watts, will be Louder than a solid state amp with 80 watts. This kind of thinking has plagued my brain my entire life, until last year.

I have found that the Watts, is only 1 component in the equation. The Main part is actually the Speaker. More Specifically - the SPL of the Speaker. The SPL measures the dB (decibel) Rating. Loudness Volume is measured in dB's. The more Decibels that your Speaker can deliver, the LOUDER your Guitar will be.

An *Awesome* thing about this is, it only takes an increase of 3 dB's to Double the Volume. With watts - it takes 10x the watts to double.

So - Let's say you have a Speaker in a 112 Amp that has a 90 dB Rating -And- you wanted to Triple the Volume Output of your Guitar Amp.

--If you were to change the Speaker with a Speaker that had a 99 dB Rating, you would be able to Triple the Volume Output of the Guitar Amp. This is a Great Way of getting a Much LOUDER Guitar Amp, without having to spend TONS of Money.

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All of this looks well and good on paper. In practice, no speaker is going to triple or even double your volume. Some speakers are more efficient than others yes. You also have to look at the frequency response curves. You will also find that the more power a speaker can handle, the less efficient it usually is. This is because the individual components are more massive and there is more heat loss. It isn't a simple relationship.

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Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A

As olddawg said, looks good on paper, but, you have to factor in being human too.... The human ear picks up frequencies in a certain order, so loudness may depend on what note you hit.

The difference between a 50 watt amplifier, and 100 watt, both tube, is 3 decibels, but, the human ear doesn't exactly pick it up this way. You also have to factor in other noises as well in a band situation, and frequencies can collide. More doesn't always mean more...... A higher wattage speaker, or with a higher decibel level will make a cleaner sounding amp. Giving more headroom before the speaker breaks up, or may "distort" less, which may sound more pleasant to the ear. Typically, speakers are rated for how much output they can handle, before they reach their limits. A speaker is a speaker, it depends on quality of components, just like an amp on how if drives a speaker. If you wish to sound louder, tailor the EQ to cut through the mix better. There's an EQ for a reason, not just to make a different sound. It can get more complex then this, if you wish to read into "even order harmonics", "odd order harmonics".

There is truly no way to make an amp louder without adding more watts, even then, that is debatable, but it only comes down to what your ear perceives. More speakers sound louder, but it only comes down to the minor differences in how each speaker reproduces the sound, some slow, or fast.

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Hi Guys - I understand what your saying. But on my part, I get together with some Musicians. I have an 80 watt solid state Marshall 112 Amp. 1 of the Musicians that I play Music with is a Drummer. He uses Drum Mics through a PA. Which sounds GREAT! But, it makes the others that play with him - have to get pretty loud to be able to Blend the Sound.

I was having a hard time being able to get loud enough. Once the Speaker Upgrade came into play - No Problems. Using the Guitar Amp with the Upgraded Speaker, I haven't had to go above 3 on the Volume and I am plenty Loud.

The thing I look at the most is - I don't like to run above 7 on the Volume. This is due to putting strain on the all the internal electronics.


So - while your concepts are completely understandable, I'm simply saying - I have seen the difference that this makes. I enjoy the sound that my Marshall produces. I didn't want to dump a few hundred more to get into a Much Louder Amp.
---A Speaker Upgrade is more Economical & it works for me!

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Stress on internal electronics????? Most amps don't even start to sound good until they are at least on 7. People dime amps all day long. Miced drums??? He has the drums in the monitor mix? You're only going to get so much out of any one 12 inch speaker. Mic the amp. You have other issues going on here.

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Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A

The first problem I'd say is the drummer being mic'd up. If you're playing fairly large venues I can see why you'd need to run the drums to the PA, but in a pub or small club the drummer ought to be fine without it.

If you really do need to mic up the drums you'll need to mic up the guitar amps as well...which may actually be better, since that method would solve a lot of problems. Firstly, you could turn your amp up or down until you found a 'sweet spot' (e.g., if it sounds best on 7 as Olddawg mentioned). Secondly, if both guitars and drums are going through the PA, you can balance them all using the same mixing desk/control panel.

I certainly agree with Forgiven-Sinner's idea that wattage isn't everything, and the fact that the relationship between wattage and volume isn't linear. Speakers CAN make a huge difference, and real-life soundchecks certainly can't be based on simple maths alone. Using my amps as an example: I have a 40w Marshall and a 50w Boogie. The Marshall is loud - loud enough for playing in a pub with a non-mic'd drummer - but the Boogie *seems* a lot louder. And yet, both are all-valve 1x12 combos. There's more going on there in terms of percieved volume than can be explained by "one is ten watts more powerful than the other."

It's horridly complicated at times, but I wish I had more opportunity to experiment in a live situation...because that's ultimately how we learn all this stuff!

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