amps..

does anyone know???

oh, ok, hope they see this

The power handling ability of the speaker cab does not add to the power of the amp...if you are running thru a 150w amp, anything over that, say two 100w speakers, three 100 watt speakers, etc., just more speaker paper, not more power. That being said, 150w could be much less going to the speakers, the rms value is what is being sent down the line. This is actually a pretty complex, and very interesting part of electric music...and if you have read some of my past posts, you may recall that my memory, or lack there-of, gets me in trouble on ocasion. You might do yourself some good surfing for info on speaker building, the audiophile threads, people who build cabinets to handle specific watt aplifiers. Some things add up, others divide , ie., two 8ohm speakers wired in series creates a 16ohm load to the amp, wired in parallel its a 8ohm load to the amp, if i remember correctly. But the wattage is cumulative, two 100w speakers in series or parallel is 200w. The thing is, I can't remeber if that was correct or not, but I can find out, by searching the proper sites on the web, or looking in my old notes, or books. But not at midnight, on a work night. For the most part, 150w amp into a 400w cab would work well, two cabs would be more to carry, more to hook up, more to keep an eye on, etc. The rabbit was correct about the others in the forum, some of them might get a laugh from my response, but I just thought it might help to suggest the research direction, you might be suprised how much math and science goes into the whole art of making loud noise.
Later
Albert

I've used as little as my 65W Crate amp through a single 12 incher in bars, and it did fine. 125W Peaveys, 50W Fenders. All work well in club-like settings, but this isn't the seventies anymore. Nowadays, whatever amp you use is going to be mic'd and run through a huge PA system.
Greg

My old kustom head weighed 75lbs, and it was only 100w rms, plus that huge speaker cab...I don't miss carrying it around, up steps,stc...that little thing is too much. But they got to be teasing you when you set up, at least until they hear it.
Like 57gregy said, this ain't the 70's any more. A small amp with good tone is so much easier to carry, and if the room is on the large size, mic thru the pa. But 65w to 150w with two 12" speakers will fill almost any average bar with plenty of sound. The new speakers are loud, and tone is the big thing these days.
Later
Albert

As long as we are on the subject of live gigs, do you folks have recommendations for monitors?

Holy Macral!

Wickerman, do they really make a 400w amp head? Or is this included with the PA? I thought the Marshall TSL2000 Triple Super Lead was like the highest wattage you could get (300w standalone).

bryant, i don't think so anymore - you'd be looking at chaining amps together to get that power outside a PA system. I used to own a really old peavy head that was 300W...the thing was a monster - i had to leave it with a friend when i moved...don't know if i'll ever get it back now.

What kind of gig? If a large bar type setting try some floor JBLs 12 or 15s for a small coffee shop some mini moniotrs will do just something to keep you from over singing. I have a pair of 4 inch powered monitors that work well for personal work, great to set up at the bottom of the mike stand, i am going to buy a set of kustom 15s for live work and use my kustom 10s for monitors, these are not the greatest but the 15 inch are $99 each at Musicians friend and the 10s are $59 each a very eco way to PA up for small venues.