help me understand why my bandmate's amp is louder than mine

[Steve Conner]

I try to position myself so that their instrument doesn't hurt MY ears and so that I can get MY idea of good tone and hear MY guitar.

Well, that won't work too well. At least, not for me: I always took this approach, and while I could hear myself fine on stage, when I listened to recordings later, I always sounded kind of in the background.

If the other guitarists are stinking loud and you aren't, then the audience won't hear you, and you might as well not be there. If you have good hearing, then by plugging up your ears you can make your idea of good tone similar to theirs.

If you're dealing with another guitarist whose idea of good tone is simply that he should be louder than everyone else, or a drummer who goes about it like he's riveting a boiler, then that's a different issue that has nothing to do with deafness. People like that are usually deaf, but this is just a symptom, and the root cause is just bad musicianship, for which there's no technological fix. Two guitarists like this in a band leads to what I can only describe as an arms race.

[mlove3]

bad musicianship is not the issue here, it's being in a bigger (another loud electric guitar) band in a bigger rowdier room twice a month.
I find myself craving more clean headroom and a fuller sound. From experience I know a 100W amp or 2 6550 equipped amp will NOT technically be much louder but the bottom end will be a nicer round baddonka donk, and adding another speaker cab will spread the sound and make it seem louder. Also the added speaker is a relatively cheap solution because I have an old crappy cab that can be salvaged.

So I'm gonna try the extra cab first and keep an eye on ebay for a new project amp and probably dump one of my old hacked (extra holes in the front panel) SF bassman chassis. If anyone is interested before I ebay them let me know.

Got my eye on a carvin x100, looks like a boogie clone right down to the eq. Anyone have any experience with these? Mods??

[mlove3]

the solution is a new speaker. the eminence wizard, bigger, cleaner, tighter, nice bottom end and louder than the celestion. under $90 new, that's a bargain!
Gonna try the tonker too, just snagged one on ebay for $65 including shipping. not bad!
the new speaker at least lets me keep up with volume boy, although hes still louder. As long as I can hear myself and be heard somewhere in the mix I'm good, I'm not gonna play volume wars.

[stingray_65]

Eminence red coat Wizzard
103db sensitivity @ 1 watt
Very loud Very British

I really love mine