Highest Wattage for 10 Amp Continuous Drain

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What is the highest watt output ever built into a single guitar amp?

• Thread starter 5E3
• Start date Nov 14, 2008

• #1

There is always a lot of chatter about watts in this forum;

What is the highest watt rating ever built into a single guitar amp?

I think the most I have read about is 200.

• #3

+1 on the crate lol

if you're new to tube amps there's a big trade off with watts. solid state amps are rated at RMS which means they produce 100 watts of CLEAN tone that doesn't have any clipping in the signal or distortion. 100 watts RMS for a tube amp will be around two times louder. As the number of watts (and tubes) increases, you will get more compression, power, clarity, and clean volume (these are called headroom characteristics) up to the point where the power amp section starts to overdrive, but you have to turn it up a lot louder to get decent tone... Basically all amps have a sweet spot in which they operate best. for some amps the headroom is. when you turn the volume up to where the power section reaches its saturation point, there is a healthy mix between preamp and power amp distortion... like old marshall amps. newer highgain amps and some fenders have higher headroom and more preamp distortion which can make them sound really fizzy and thin if you don't turn the volume up enough to saturate the power tubes. you can actually see when tubes start to saturate on some types if your'e in a dark room. there will be a blue glow around them after you hit the standby switch with the volume at least halfway up.. i'm pretty sure this has to do with nitrogen gas left over in the tube that wasn't oxidized by the barium powder (the silvery stuff on top) when the vaccuum was created inside the tube (oxygen is only in ~20% of the atmosphere and most of hte rest is nitrogen). It accepts the extra energy from the electrons when you have your amp turned up and this gives it an excited state. as it tries to go back to it's original or ground state its given off as blue light. When you don't have power amp saturated you are in an 'electron starved' condition which could have an effect on some deleterious effect on the more fragile harmonic frequencies that exist in the signal created by your guitar. i really got off topic there didn't I? It's not necessary to have a 100+ watt tube amp if you just want good sound and you're playing in your house or practice space for fun. this would be a LOUD amp and your neighbors would hate you. a lot of people complain about not enough watts because they want to have an amp that sounds good to practice on and is also loud enough to play out on.

• #4

Didn't Fender have a 1000w all tube bass amp? You had to have 3 separate cabs plugged into it to get all the power out of it (300w each). Using JBL D130 drivers (2 in each) rated at 102 dB per watt at 1m, the total output would be in the ballpark of 132 dB clean, perhaps a little more, perhaps up to 135 dB distorted. And I'm quite sure that's the loudest tube amp ever for guitar. The loudest tube amp is a main battle paging system for a battleship that went on Ebay a couple of years ago. I think that was designed for 140 dB to be heard over the guns firing: it put out something like 30,000 watts. Never did figure out what you'd do for a speaker system!

• #5

Punky Meadows (of Angel fame, such as it was) used to play thru three SVT heads into 6 Marshall cabinets at the Keg in Georgetown. I think SVT's put out 300 Watts. However loud you can imagine Punky played... it was louder.

Gantt

There is always a lot of chatter about watts in this forum;

What is the highest watt rating ever built into a single guitar amp?

I think the most I have read about is 200.

• #6

Hiwatt made a 400 watt tube head, the DR405; 6 KT88 tubes.
Marshall had the 2001 Bass at 375 watts with 8 6550 tubes.
The Ampeg SVT(bass)/V9(guitar) heads were 300+ watts with 6 6550 tubes...

But the winner has to be the Champ Electronics CBA-1000:

http://www.chambonino.com/construct/const9.html

1000 watts.

• #7

Mesa Boogie Strategy or Cooliseum Power Amp 200w per side or 400w bridged mono. 12 6L6's.

• #8

Hiwatt made a 400 watt tube head, the DR405; 6 KT88 tubes.
Marshall had the 2001 Bass at 375 watts with 8 6550 tubes.
The Ampeg SVT(bass)/V9(guitar) heads were 300+ watts with 6 6550 tubes...

But the winner has to be the Champ Electronics CBA-1000:

http://www.chambonino.com/construct/const9.html

1000 watts.

I've heard of trannies as big as your head but wow, those things are gigantic!

• #9

The Ashdown UK made Fallen Angel Tube head was 250 watts.

• #12

Had a Mesa Boogie stratagy 400 power amp/quad preamp setup in the 80's....200 WATTS PER SIDE for guitar aint foolin around.

• #13

Rickenbacker made a solid state amp in the late 60s called the Transonic. Jimmy Page used them on Led Zep's first US tour, as did the Jeff Beck group. The Transonic 200 was a stack that had a 350w peak power rating and could be paired up with another power amp and cabinet for 700w - this was apparently called the "Rick-O-Gain" option. They also had built in fuzz and a VU meter on the panel. Here's some pics of Pagey using 2 of the Transonic cabs - not sure what the head is though - could be a Sound City:

Seems to be using 1 Transonic head here + one from above:

Here's a link with a good rundown of the Transonics:
http://jzu.free.fr/rick/amp/transonic.html

Carlos Santana used an early Gallien Kruger 226A solid state amp at Woodstock rated at more than 226 watts - hence the 226 name. Right at the end of the "Soul Sacrifice" Woodstock performance, around 8.45 - 9.00 you can see his amp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnamP4-M9ko
A little Gallien-Kruger timeline-states that the GM226A went to Woodstock with Carlos.
See: http://www.gallien-krueger.com/info_innovations.html

Ritchie Blackmore used Marshall Major (Pig) amps in the 70s that were reputedly modified by the folks at Marshall to generate twice the output - that would be 400 watts. Some info here about that from a history of Marshall publication: http://books.google.com.au/books?id...=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA67,M1

• #14

Hiwatt made a 400 watt tube head, the DR405; 6 KT88 tubes.
Marshall had the 2001 Bass at 375 watts with 8 6550 tubes.
The Ampeg SVT(bass)/V9(guitar) heads were 300+ watts with 6 6550 tubes...

But the winner has to be the Champ Electronics CBA-1000:

http://www.chambonino.com/construct/const9.html

1000 watts.

2500 volts B+!!!

• #16

Punky Meadows (of Angel fame, such as it was) used to play thru three SVT heads into 6 Marshall cabinets at the Keg in Georgetown. I think SVT's put out 300 Watts. However loud you can imagine Punky played... it was louder.

Gantt

I remember Punky, when he was with "Daddy Warbucks" and with "The Cherry People", down at The Bayou. Also, saw him with "Angel".

Whatever became / happened to him? I ran into a D.C.-area guy at a vintage guitar show that I used to see "around" (D.C., NoVa, Rockville, etc.). He said Punky still owed him ($$), so I should let

him know if I saw him.

Dude could play. I remember getting waaaaay to close to his side of the stage, in several small metro-D.C. clubs & bars (also, OC, MD). My ears are still ringing. Remember his slide "tricks" with a beer bottle?

• #18

But the winner has to be the Champ Electronics CBA-1000:

http://www.chambonino.com/construct/const9.html

1000 watts.

Nope! Wrong, Camel-Breath ....

I submit one of the 1200-watt Walter Woods amps (not sure what model). I think (?) he has ... or, can build, an amp with more power than that, if you should require.

Amazingly quiet amps (primarily bass amps, but can be dialed-up, tonewise, for quitar).

• #19

Jerry Garcia used a McIntosh MC2300 - 600W RMS chained.

[FONT=Verdana,Helvetica]Performance Specifications- 300 watts RMS minimum sine wave continuous average power output per channel 600 watts RMS in Mono operation. .5ohm, 1ohm, 2ohm, 4ohm, 8ohm and 16ohm terminals are provided for each channel 20 hz to 20,000 hz rated frequency responce 0.25% maximum harmonic distortion at any power level Input Impedance is 200k ohms Input Sensitivity Switchable from 0.5 volts or 2.5 volts with input level controls Semiconductor complement: 46 Transistors, 17 Silicon Rectifiers and diodes Measurements: 19" wide x 10.5" high x 17" deep Large Analog Back-lit Blue VU Meters Standard 19" Rack Mount. [/FONT]

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Source: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/what-is-the-highest-watt-output-ever-built-into-a-single-guitar-amp.464558/

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