Maxing amps- how long is ok?

[J M Fahey]

Ok this addresses the input signal from the gtr. (is the word "clipping" then associated solely with this gtr input level?).

No, not solely.
It depends on: guitar level + amp level + playing level .
So even if all knobs (amp and guitar ) are on 10, if you do not play anything the amp is still at idle.
Please answer:
YES, I understand this.
NO, I do not understand this.
YES/NO <-- pick one.

No further questions or answers possible until you answer this first one.
Thanks.

[Sea Chief]

Forget about the position of the volume controls. It is irrelevant. All that matters is how loud it is. The louder it's being played the harder it's working.

Ok can I condense it right down to this? I can understand that the louder it is the more the speaker is being worked, & the more the preamp is being worked. But if some one says the power amp section is flat out all the time regardless of the preamp level fed to it (is it? is that true? Im deluged by info Im not sure if this is true).. then that implies a set of power tubes will go pop whether a spotty teen is tinkering away at whisper levels.. or a hairy axe monster is going hammer & tongs at the amp at 10. Ive read on numerous times, that pushing power tubes will likely result in their life being less. Ive just got to try and find out why this (seemingly factual) bit of info is true.

If someone I know who is a pro and has the most enormous wealth of tube amp knowledge (grew up on tubes from dad/ been a radio & tube amp builder/ repairer for many years/ has oscillators, valve testers.. and makes the best amps Ive ever heard) says something different to your condensed answer, where does that leave me? IE he says/ I reitterate "Yes it’s still being pushed, but not as much as when the gtr vol. on MAX". It might not be the opposite, but the two condensed answers do seem completely incongrous to each other (to me, to boil it down, that seems fairly black & white: hugely confusing).

Im not sure why there was an analogy of "Do you drive your car in first gear with the accelerator floored?" as I cannot contextualise it whatsoever to my amp.. but if there is another anology that is relevant, to simplify maybe, could someone try that?

[Sea Chief]

SC
After being acussed of getting snitty, I will try to clear this up for you.

#1: put a meter on your speaker , set it to read Volts ac.

Then you will have all of your answers.

Amp on 10, guitar on 10: probably the amp is maxed.(measure it)
Any other condition will result in less output power.

The 'works harder" part is all relative to the output of the amp.

But why cant you answer for me, without me having to do this? I dont know what to expect/ or what to do exactly. If I get a reading of 0.1 and a reading of 0.2 I cannot relate them to anything without experience of what to expect. Btw I have never accused you of being "snitty" (I have no idea even what that means). Please dont write such stuff- its not becoming of you whose opinion I trust & replies I read thoughrally (plus pdf64 & Dave H, elipsey & ChuckH as a rule).

Please have patience if I simply do not understand something (& I get differeing opinions from at least two people whose opinions I trust, making things tricky).

[pdf64]

Please be assured that all responses have attempted to help.
As Jazz mentioned, if you measure the Vac across the speaker at idle it will be tiny, less than 1V.
When the amp is being played loud, it should go above 15Vac.
That's an indication that the amp is working hard.

[nosaj]

But why cant you answer for me, without me having to do this? I dont know what to expect/ or what to do exactly. If I get a reading of 0.1 and a reading of 0.2 I cannot relate them to anything without experience of what to expect. Btw I have never accused you of being "snitty" (I have no idea even what that means). Please dont write such stuff- its not becoming of you whose opinion I trust & replies I read thoughrally (plus pdf64 & Dave H, elipsey & ChuckH as a rule).

Please have patience if I simply do not understand something (& I get differeing opinions from at least two people whose opinions I trust, making things tricky).

You remind me of someone who buys a new truck and then is afraid to take it in the woods or put dirt in the bed of the truck for fear of scratching it.
Then you want someone else to do the work for you. Buy a watt meter to plug your amp in then let it dictate how loud or soft your gonna play.

Jazz offered you help an now you want him to do the work while you don't learn anything from just experimenting. Your biggest teacher is going to be Your mistakes at the end of the day experience is the mistakes we have made.

You don't have to understand everything just to learn how it basically works.
Seriously buy a wattmeter for your answers you seem to be one who might learn by seeing.

nosaj

[Sea Chief]

You remind me of someone who buys a new truck and then is afraid to take it in the woods or put dirt in the bed of the truck for fear of scratching it.
Then you want someone else to do the work for you. Buy a watt meter to plug your amp in then let it dictate how loud or soft your gonna play.

Jazz offered you help an now you want him to do the work while you don't learn anything from just experimenting. Your biggest teacher is going to be Your mistakes at the end of the day experience is the mistakes we have made.

You don't have to understand everything just to learn how it basically works.
Seriously buy a wattmeter for your answers you seem to be one who might learn by seeing.

nosaj

What on earth is the point of buying a wattmeter... if I dont have a clue what im reading?! you say this as if I know where/ what how/ why a watt is measured. I dont. I have no idea of how to contextualise the notion of a watt, in the Q Im asking. None whatsoever. No-one has even attempted to explain as such here re watts. All I know is a champ is 5w. A Dlx Rev is 22w. More than that tbh Im not remotely interested.. unless that is, its explained to me first how watts are any part or have any relation to the Q Im asking.

I dont want legthy detail- I dont understand it/ I cant deal with it/ & dont need to either. Im just asking about the power tubes, and how hard they are being pushed relative to the volume on the amp, and the vol on the gtr. if I dont understand its not me being obdurate whatsoever, or not accepting something. Its that I dont understand. Thats all.

[nosaj]

What on earth is the point of buying a wattmeter... if I dont have a clue what im reading?! you say this as if I know where/ what how/ why a watt is measured. I dont. I have no idea of how to contextualise the notion of a watt, in the Q Im asking. None whatsoever. No-one has even attempted to explain as such here re watts. All I know is a champ is 5w. A Dlx Rev is 22w. More than that tbh Im not remotely interested.. unless that is, its explained to me first how watts are any part or have any relation to the Q Im asking.

I dont want legthy detail- I dont understand it/ I cant deal with it/ & dont need to either. Im just asking about the power tubes, and how hard they are being pushed relative to the volume on the amp, and the vol on the gtr. if I dont understand its not me being obdurate whatsoever, or not accepting something. Its that I dont understand. Thats all.

That right there is your Major problem you have no interest in learning yet you want everyone to feed you like a baby. Just maybe you should take a class on basic electronics it will either immensely help you or confirm something .
A watt meter show how much power is being consumed. I kinda thing of it similar in relation to a gas gauge or a speedometer. The more watts yous use the more the tubes are being worked.

[Chuck H]

Ok can I condense it right down to this? I can understand that the louder it is the more the speaker is being worked, & the more the preamp is being worked. But if some one says the power amp section is flat out all the time regardless of the preamp level fed to it (is it? is that true? Im deluged by info Im not sure if this is true).. then that implies a set of power tubes will go pop whether a spotty teen is tinkering away at whisper levels.. or a hairy axe monster is going hammer & tongs at the amp at 10. Ive read on numerous times, that pushing power tubes will likely result in their life being less. Ive just got to try and find out why this (seemingly factual) bit of info is true.

Simple answer. Yes! Your power amp is up full all the time. The added noise you hear with the volume knob up is the preamp and absolutely NOT added tension to the power amp. Having the amp on ten DOES NOT stress the power tubes any more than with the amp on zero (with the exception of the tiny his/hum it is now amplifying).

All of this is repeat ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The only time the power tubes are doing significant work is when they are making loud sounds. The louder the sound, the harder the work. This is absolutely irrespective of any volume knob setting. Volume knob settings are arbitrary to the point.

And "hairy axe monster going hammer and tongs" made me laugh.

If someone I know who is a pro and has the most enormous wealth of tube amp knowledge (grew up on tubes from dad/ been a radio & tube amp builder/ repairer for many years/ has oscillators, valve testers.. and makes the best amps Ive ever heard) says something different to your condensed answer, where does that leave me?

If he's as savvy as you say, show him this post. If he doesn't say "Yes, that's correct." then he is wrong. But he won't say that. See below for an explanation and understand that he was probably as tired of trying to explain it to you as we are quickly becoming.

IE he says/ I reitterate "Yes it’s still being pushed, but not as much as when the gtr vol. on MAX". It might not be the opposite, but the two condensed answers do seem completely incongrous to each other

Not at all incongruous. That quote, from above, was with respect to amps knob being on ten. In that case the guitars volume controls the POTENTIAL for input to the amp. Therefor, the higher the guitar volume knob the harder the amp CAN BE MADE to work. BUT... If you simply turn the guitar volume up and don't DO anything then all the work the amp is doing is that background noise you hear. I'm sure your guy assumed that if you turned your guitar know up to ten it was because you were PLAYING THE GUITAR. So, to flesh out your guys statement...

*WITH THE amp @ max, AND THE GUITAR BEING PLAYED "Yes it’s still being pushed, but not as much as when the gtr vol. on MAX.*

There, see how that statement works now? It was accurate but left you confused because it was incomplete. If I simply say "People who eat peanut butter die." that doesn't mean I think peanut butter will kill you. It may have been that I was answering someone's crazy inquiry about who dies and they asked "What about people that eat peanut butter?" Everyone dies. The peanut butter is moot.

If you honestly DO NOT "get it" or "understand it" at this point there are only two possible reasons:

1) You do not have the intellect to glean knowledge from written words.

or

2) You are a troll and your misunderstanding is disingenuous.

Chuck out! (Did you hear that? That was a mic hitting the stage when it was dropped)

[Sea Chief]

You remind me of someone who buys a new truck and then is afraid to take it in the woods or put dirt in the bed of the truck for fear of scratching it.

And you remind me of a bad teacher getting all flustered assuming they've taught well, explained everything clearly.. when they've done exactly the opposite.

Ive been diming my DR and my Champ for the last few days FYI. And plenty of times before too.

Im just trying to understand the state of the amp like so.

[Sea Chief]

Simple answer. Yes! Your power amp is up full all the time. The added noise you hear with the volume knob up is the preamp and absolutely NOT added tension to the power amp. Having the amp on ten DOES NOT stress the power tubes any more than with the amp on zero (with the exception of the tiny his/hum it is now amplifying).

All of this is repeat ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The only time the power tubes are doing significant work is when they are making loud sounds. The louder the sound, the harder the work. This is absolutely irrespective of any volume knob setting. Volume knob settings are arbitrary to the point.

And "hairy axe monster going hammer and tongs" made me laugh.



If he's as savvy as you say, show him this post. If he doesn't say "Yes, that's correct." then he is wrong. But he won't say that. See below for an explanation and understand that he was probably as tired of trying to explain it to you as we are quickly becoming.



Not at all incongruous. That quote, from above, was with respect to amps knob being on ten. In that case the guitars volume controls the POTENTIAL for input to the amp. Therefor, the higher the guitar volume knob the harder the amp CAN BE MADE to work. BUT... If you simply turn the guitar volume up and don't DO anything then all the work the amp is doing is that background noise you hear. I'm sure your guy assumed that if you turned your guitar know up to ten it was because you were PLAYING THE GUITAR. So, to flesh out your guys statement...

*WITH THE amp @ max, AND THE GUITAR BEING PLAYED "Yes it’s still being pushed, but not as much as when the gtr vol. on MAX.*

There, see how that statement works now? It was accurate but left you confused because it was incomplete. If I simply say "People who eat peanut butter die." that doesn't mean I think peanut butter will kill you. It may have been that I was answering someone's crazy inquiry about who dies and they asked "What about people that eat peanut butter?" Everyone dies. The peanut butter is moot.

If you honestly DO NOT "get it" or "understand it" at this point there are only two possible reasons:

1) You do not have the intellect to glean knowledge from written words.

or

2) You are a troll and your misunderstanding is disingenuous.

Chuck out! (Did you hear that? That was a mic hitting the stage when it was dropped)

Thanks ChuckH. Wont be reading your posts again- you are offensive and patronising.

[nosaj]

And you remind me of a bad teacher getting all flustered assuming they've taught well, explained everything clearly.. when they've done exactly the opposite.

Ive been diming my DR and my Champ for the last few days FYI. And plenty of times before too.

Im just trying to understand the state of the amp like so.

Now what frustrates me is that you have no intention of learning an have stated as much in the posts. But i guess there are those that can be taught and those that cannot.

Quote"Ive been diming my DR and my Champ for the last few days FYI. And plenty of times before too.

Im just trying to understand the state of the amp like so."quote

So what you should have learned is that it won't kill it....should be all you need

nosaj

[Sea Chief]

That right there is your Major problem you have no interest in learning yet you want everyone to feed you like a baby. Just maybe you should take a class on basic electronics it will either immensely help you or confirm something .
A watt meter show how much power is being consumed. I kinda thing of it similar in relation to a gas gauge or a speedometer. The more watts yous use the more the tubes are being worked.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]37893[/ATTACH]

I wont put up with you or read posts if you are childish & mean, even if you are seemingly trying to explain afterwards.

Its like a few children trying so desperately hard to impress in the playground on here- sad.

[Sea Chief]

Now what frustrates me is that you have no intention of learning an have stated as much in the posts. But i guess there are those that can be taught and those that cannot.

Quote"Ive been diming my DR and my Champ for the last few days FYI. And plenty of times before too.

Im just trying to understand the state of the amp like so."quote

So what you should have learned is that it won't kill it....should be all you need

nosaj

I havent after a week.. no. But I havent learnt anything by this exercise. Ive just come to the (perfectly relevant) Q as a result, as to how long could I continue using the amp like so? Is it bad for the amp like so?.

Considering one reads plenty of spiel on power tubes going pop, it seems sensible to ask how/ why/ when its most likely whwn the amp is dimed.. exactly like Ive been doing.

Do you understand how/ why/ in what context Im asking these Q's now?

You still mention watts as if Ive any idea what you are talking about. If its not explained in relation to the Q- then I dont have one iota of an idea do I?

[nosaj]

I wont put up with you or read posts if you are childish & mean, even if you are seemingly trying to explain afterwards.

Its like a few children trying so desperately hard to impress in the playground on here- sad.

There was nothing childish or mean about it. Just the Facts. I have no one I want to impress here, they impress me with their wealth of knowledge and helpfulness. this isn't the schoolyard buddy. People bend over backwards here to help you and it's like you want everyone to talk in your language while you make absolutely no effort to get up to speed. You act like a dying horse being drug to the water to save it. (will the water help? what if its too cold? could there be bacteria in it ? What if it doesn't taste good?)

nosaj

[Chuck H]

Thanks ChuckH. Wont be reading your posts again

And you are disingenuous and playing all these good people like puppets to dance for your amusement. Why? Mommy didn't hug little SC enough as a kid? It's the same MO with you every thread. Go get a turtle for a friend then. Or some other thing too slow to get away from you. Then you can play with it and leave us be, troll.