18w

[9pins]

I ran a blues act last night as a pick up, nice bunch out of Brooklyn. The guitar used a 18w marshal, and the thing was perfect for the room. A 25w might be too loud, funny.
Small hall, gate gig, 200 soft seat, full house. The bass said he was doing higher profile shows in NY with nothing more than a blues jr, especially when you got to walk in for a few blocks just to make it in to the gig, for BIG acts.

The watt level was perfect, I've known another fellow used to do los vegas gigs with a princeton, anyway, the marshal was wonderful.

[Lynxtrap]

I've seen Jeff Beck playing a 20 000 head outdoor arena with a Blues Jr.

[katopan]

They do seem like the perfect stage amp sort of power. Any bigger and things get mic'd anyway.

[9pins]

used to show at jams with a scary looking 6v6 thing, ugly, crap hanging out the back...Other fellows would show with 50 and 100w budda's, maessaa'....
but my little box of junk would carry the room, krank it up and got the tone no way to make the $$$ amps sound good at low volume, just too much watt for the space.

the looks on theirs faces, when the dog pile makes their "investment" look bad. Alot can be said for the right amp for a room

[Colossal]

used to show at jams with a scary looking 6v6 thing, ugly, crap hanging out the back...Other fellows would show with 50 and 100w budda's, maessaa'....
but my little box of junk would carry the room, krank it up and got the tone no way to make the $$$ amps sound good at low volume, just too much watt for the space.

the looks on theirs faces, when the dog pile makes their "investment" look bad. Alot can be said for the right amp for a room

9pins,

Out of curiosity, what part or parts of your build do you attribute that too? Efficient speaker and/or cab configuration? Circuit frequency/mid focus?

I built a 6V6 Plexi that was crazy loud and brown sounding, really a cool amp. Warm and squishy and sounded a lot bigger than its 22W output.

[9pins]

It was a trash heap, I mean really a pile of garbage, seriously, everything was beat and old and tacked together... wondrous it even worked.
I think it was either the usual fender TB and V between a couple gain stages, in front of a LTCC inverter, or a V between a couple stages followed by the tone stack, really simple.
A couple other things, cathode bias, it had a antiquated filter can, SS rec., 40mf on the first filter stage but its age must have been a factor, I know there's an impedance relation ship with the PS that is more critical than most think, anyway...
the only other thing I remember was frigging with the FB resistor by ear to get it just so, less FB, the thing sang, I think the coupling caps in the power side were no more than .02, it never farted out.
I think the age, and the construction of the transformers had a part too, paper former. it all added up.

But it was the rooms that made it all perfect, small crap bar open mic's.

[M Fowler]

Well if you keep the voltages high and design for clean head room your going to be able run the little fella with the big dog amps in some situations but not always.

I use 18w and 30w-36w amps more often then any other amps but I'm never playing any large venues and outdoor gigs I bring the 50-100w with 412 to get my point across

Mark

[9pins]

thats exactly right..