how many watts do you need to amplify your bass?

TGBob
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Thu Feb 11, 2010 3:20 pm

how many watts do you need to amplify your bass?

good question...

mainly it depends upon the sound pressure (volume) level that's required. more volume, more power is required. so, just for numbers sake, lets say you were using a 100 watt amp that gave you a maximum 100db of volume and wanted to double your volume level which would be 110db (twice as loud). you might think a 200 watt amp would do the deal, nope, it would take approximately 1000 watts to increase your volume by 10db. why, because for approximately every 3db increase in power, requires twice the amplifier power. so what's a db? db (short for decibel) is a reference for measuring volume. for example, if you listened to your stereo and turned the volume knob up just enough to hear a change in volume, that's approximately 3db of volume change, and a 9 to 10db increase in volume is perceived as approximately twice as loud. with bass, because it's a lower frequency instrument, requires considerably more power than a guitar would to achieve the same volume increase. so, if your playing acoustic gigs your power needs are going to be a lot different than if your playing louder rock type gigs...