Silenced Fred Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Again, the question comes up. When we were playing at a large Cafeteria, the sound of my tube amp resounded through the entire building, and my friends said you could hear it through the halls. The other bands, including one that was playing a 150W Line 6 Halfstack solidstate, not tube, was plenty loud, but as you got away from the stage, the sound died off pretty quick and all you could hear was drums and vocals. Why is that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stein Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Please, please tell us what instrument of toobness this was? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silenced Fred Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 Please, please tell us what instrument of toobness this was? what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Did you have your amp set at 11? you know, for that extra push? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silenced Fred Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 Did you have your amp set at 11? you know, for that extra push? 3 We weren't necessarily louder than everyone else, the sound just carried better with tubes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Do you have NOS Pre-CBS taken from Leos' dead hand and electrostatically matched on Lord Valves AutoT00b Thrombobulator VOS Ten Top FujiGenKakki t00bs? rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stein Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 what? In English: 1) how many tubes and what kind are in the amp. 2) how many speakers and what kind. 3) WHAT AMP WAS IT!!!!! Make us drool over the tone and tell us about the ss amp? What is the important info here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silenced Fred Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 In English: 1) how many tubes and what kind are in the amp. 2) how many speakers and what kind. 3) WHAT AMP WAS IT!!!!! Make us drool over the tone and tell us about the ss amp? What is the important info here? Oh gotcha. 2 6L6s 8 12AX7 1x12 Celestion Sunn T50C, I ran it on the 50 watt setting, volume was on 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damian Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Good music carries farther.....Bad music doesn't......just sayin'....You guys must rock.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 I hate to say this, but assuming a sound gauge were to be placed a foot in front of each amp and the amplitude were the same, it still ain't the tubes per se. The type of speaker will diffuse sound differently; if it's not right next on the stage, the sound is going somewhere else anyway. That's why acoustics in a given hall make major differences in what audiences hear and why, from ancient Roman times and before, acoustics have been a major bit of study. Another factor may be what parts of the audio spectrum each amp might have been using even if they were in exactly the same place and a foot away pushed a meter the same. That's your audience ears. All the above is why I've begun to consider a good PA as more important to a band's sound than any equipment the players may be running through. Yeah, audiences seem to be turned on by the appearance of big amps for "electric" bands of all sorts but the proof of the pudding in a balanced sound probably will best be found with a good PA with everything running, one way or another, through it. Yeah, we didn't do it that way in the olden days 'cuz the stuff just wasn't there for a small band. It is now. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stein Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Oh gotcha. 2 6L6s 8 12AX7 1x12 Celestion Sunn T50C, I ran it on the 50 watt setting, volume was on 3 Never heard of it, so I googled...got lucky and saw a post from an electrical engineer type guy who described the construction. Mentioned a couple happening Fender tweed type circuits in the preamp section...a beefy output tranny. I also learned it has a g12-75 speaker. Now, to explain the science in as plain of ENGLISH as I can muster, when you take THAT speaker, and run THAT amp through it, it actually has an effect on the air pressure of the surrounding environment. OR, if I say it another way, there is enough electricity flowing to produce a lightning bolt, and the speaker can move enough air to make clouds if the conditions are right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Stein <grin> In short... It's the speaker with a lotta power through it. Open cab... closed cab... speaker type. Speaker placement. Assuming again we're outputting the same decibels, the place on the sound spectrum will make a difference and the amp and amp settings will affect that latter. That's one reason in the old days we'd get PA speakers as high as possible 'cuz the rigs I had anything to do with weren't up to modern standards, especially the speakers. There was plenty of power in the amp, so speaker placement and type were major factors on being heard or not - or breaking up the vocals with too much power not necessarily set to an optimal eq setting. That's not surprising 'cuz I'm talking literally a half century ago. Also we were more interested in our own guitar/amp gear than the pa. Dumb, I think now. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swleary Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Fuzzy, please watch the language....just sayin in a non sarcastic way.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stein Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Stein <grin> In short... It's the speaker with a lotta power through it. Open cab... closed cab... speaker type. Speaker placement. Assuming again we're outputting the same decibels, the place on the sound spectrum will make a difference and the amp and amp settings will affect that latter. That's one reason in the old days we'd get PA speakers as high as possible 'cuz the rigs I had anything to do with weren't up to modern standards, especially the speakers. There was plenty of power in the amp, so speaker placement and type were major factors on being heard or not - or breaking up the vocals with too much power not necessarily set to an optimal eq setting. That's not surprising 'cuz I'm talking literally a half century ago. Also we were more interested in our own guitar/amp gear than the pa. Dumb, I think now. m Yea..I can only imagine what damage you would have done with the G12-75 speaker...back then, I understand you guys BLEW a lot of speakers. The G12-75 speaker is not only strong, but it is very sensitive, and "soaks" up more electricity then the old jensens. And, you right about the difference between just 1 db of volume at a certain frequency at a certain speaker placement. I think the methods of measurement of sound we use are really primitive compared to all the intricacies that have an effect on sound we hear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silenced Fred Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 Fuzzy, please watch the language....just sayin in a non sarcastic way.... Oops. I've been spending too much time on MLP... my bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVOL! Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Was the Line 6 cab a closed back? If so, that would explain it for me. With an open back or partially open back you'll push more sound all around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silenced Fred Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 Was the Line 6 cab a closed back? If so, that would explain it for me. With an open back or partially open back you'll push more sound all around. Partially open. His was 3 times the wattage and solid state. Besides for using the "beehive during mating season" setting, I thought it could be comparable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Stein... Never blew a speaker, but hadda lotta overmodulation on 'em. They looked like old-style 12-inch console radio speakers but must have had a lot more whumpf. I hadda cupla tube PA systems that worked kinda like the Fender "put 'em together" stuff except the tube PA box went in the bottom and the two speaker "cabs" (entirely open back) went together to make a big amp-size box to carry. My second one worked quite well in saloons the size we have around here for country/rock. The first one was as good as anything else we heard, but that ain't saying much. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ne14t? Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Its the awesomeness of tubez man, they defy the laws of Quantum Thermonuclear Dynamics its hard to explain, but the last two things left on Earth after the nuclear apocalypse will be cockroaches and tubez because both can survive the blast, EMP and radiation from it. In all reality a tube amplifier will sound louder then a solid state, but it will not actually be louder. When a tube is driven outside of its linear region for about the first 12dB of overdrive the harmonics produced by the amp trick the human ear into believing the sound is getting louder when in reality the sound is becoming more distorted. Its this acoustic trick that can make tube amps sound upto 12dB louder than they actually are compared to a undistorted amp. A solid state amplifier of the same power level as a tube amp may distort at the same signal level as the tube amp, but the distortion is not subtle and we hear it as distortion, in the case of a solid state it's commonly referred to as "Clipping". So a tube amp will always sound larger then it is. Edit: Case in point is my Marshall Haze 15W all tube vs. my old Fender Mustang III 100W solid state, both were run through similar Celestion speakers (1x12) and the Marshall sounds as loud if not louder then the Fender did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damian Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Yup.....Net14? touches upon the math a bit.....I'm not good at explaining this stuff............ The wave forms created by tube amps are different, even once it leaves the speaker.... It's more natural, more coherient per se......Your EQs have a lot to do with how your sound travels as well.......I'm doing lots of recording studies, and it's facinating how much EQ settings matter, and how they effect sound, volume, and the perception of both........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Yupper for sure on the EQ thing. In my tube PA days that made a huge diff on the degree to which you could understand anything from those old speakers. Ditto then on the qualities of a given speaker(s) on an amp or PA. I guess my bottom line on the whole thing is that how many decibels you put out at the speaker itself is far from being what, and how, the audience perceives what it is the band is doing in terms of sound. To put it bluntly, to me it's kinda like writing for publication. You want the "consumer" to have the best and most comfortable experience possible or you just plain ain't communicating. Ditto music. In terms of rock, yeah, you want loud, but do you want it so nobody can understand the words of a song they may know or that you just wrote? Do you want the band to sound like a band to the audience instead of very loud white noise? I get really grouchy when I see a 12-point type dark red lettering on a black background for a very expensive print ad. Nobody can easily read that, especially if it's in columns that are 8 inches wide which is proven to add to reading difficulty even with black print on white paper. It's too easy for a "loud" band, rock or country, to overmodulate into white noise from an audience perspective. That's especially true for bands that don't take great care to figure what the audience really is hearing instead of just something from a PA monitor. "We" can spend tens of thousands on amps and guitars but if the audience doesn't get what it is they perceive they're paying for, it is a waste. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silenced Fred Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 Yupper for sure on the EQ thing. In my tube PA days that made a huge diff on the degree to which you could understand anything from those old speakers. Ditto then on the qualities of a given speaker(s) on an amp or PA. I guess my bottom line on the whole thing is that how many decibels you put out at the speaker itself is far from being what, and how, the audience perceives what it is the band is doing in terms of sound. To put it bluntly, to me it's kinda like writing for publication. You want the "consumer" to have the best and most comfortable experience possible. In terms of rock, yeah, you want loud, but do you want it so nobody can understand the words of a song they may know or that you just wrote? Do you want the band to sound like a band to the audience instead of very loud white noise? I get really grouchy when I see a 12-point type dark red lettering on a black background for a very expensive print ad. Nobody can easily read that, especially if it's in columns that are 8 inches wide which is proven to add to reading difficulty even with black print on white paper. It's too easy for a "loud" band, rock or country, to overmodulate into white noise from an audience perspective. That's especially true for bands that don't take great care to figure what the audience really is hearing instead of just something from a PA monitor. "We" can spend tens of thousands on amps and guitars but if the audience doesn't get what it is they perceive they're paying for, it is a waste. m Oh yeah, we are loud. However, the judges loved our mix. We have good dynamics, and the vocals don't get washed out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 What was your bass player doing/using compared to the dorks with the L1n3 6 amp and his bass player? Sometimes bass player is yer friend and helps carry you to the back of the room. Seriously. Air moved is air moved. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Nathan... Then you're doing well! I can tell you it was #$%@#$% difficult back in the olden days. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silenced Fred Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 What was your bass player doing/using compared to the dorks with the L1n3 6 amp and his bass player? Sometimes bass player is yer friend and helps carry you to the back of the room. Seriously. Air moved is air moved. rct My bassist has a Hartke combo amp, its nothing too big and he doesn't really play that loud. The other band had a kid using an older Acoustic amp, sounded pretty good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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