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Post subject: Re: gigging with a 5W tube amp?
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 10:33 am
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Rock Star
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I've done it. Clean headroom? You may not get enough depending on the music you play. As others mentioned really efficient speakers will help, but, you need to play with professional people especially the drummer. If he can't play dynamically all bets are off. I ran my 6 watt Champ through two Egnater 2x12 cabs loaded with Celestion Elite speakers at 8 ohms and a Weber Z-Matcher to match the 4 ohm impedance. I had a decent amount of headroom in a roughly 1200 SF space. I would really suggest 10 watts or better.

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Post subject: Re: gigging with a 5W tube amp?
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:40 am
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Roadie
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I've used a Champ SCXD (15w, 10" speaker) with a Blues/Jazz band consisting of keys, drums, bass and myself. No problem when we're playing mellow to upbeat Jazz and the drummer is in low volume mode. In fact (a point made by previous posters), the SCXD works a bit better since replacing the original Fender speaker with a Copperhead.

But I get distortion when we do a blues-rock type number and everyone turns it up a notch. That might be okay if we wanted to sound like a rock band playing blues, but our goal is to be more mellow. The volume is enough if I dial it way up, but I don't care for the clearly driven sound.

I've been using a 30W Ibanez TSH30 head and a 1 X 12" Jazz-voiced cab (with 150W speaker) to great effect. The whole rig cost less than some boutique 5W amps I've seen and has plenty of headroom. On the other hand (aside from not caring for the overall sound), I found a 40W Band Master VM with 2 X 12" cab to be serious overkill.


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Post subject: Re: gigging with a 5W tube amp?
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 7:31 am
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Hobbyist
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Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 2:43 pm
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You have plenty of variables that can influence the answer to your question.....best thing always is to just try it and see if it works; bring a back up amp in the case that it doesn't....shouldn't you do that anyway? I always did...remember Murphy's law

Anecdotal note: I know plenty of folks using very low wattage amps for live gigs - large and small venues

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Post subject: Re: gigging with a 5W tube amp?
Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:51 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:33 pm
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I briefly used a silverface Champ for playing harp in a 5-piece Blues band (Fort Worth bluesman Rollo Smith)...it definitely got lost in the mix. Since the "PA system" (I put that in quotes so as not to insult REAL PA systems everywhere) had two channels, and both were being used for vocal mics, I quickly reverted back to my Vibroverb...

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