Originally Posted by: alucard0941Do most pros use 100+ watt amps in the recording studio? That fact that tube amps sound their best when boosted to their max can blow the room up 100 watt head. Or do they use a small 50watt 212 and really crank it.

studio's can opt to you power attenuators that plug in between the head and the cab and basically convert a lot of the watts coming out of the head into heat, and thus taking a lot of the watts away. you could crank a 100w tube head up to maximum and attenuate it to 10 or 20 watts.


I'm getting a 50watt tube head soon and for 2 or 300 aus more i could get the 100 watt but it's a known fact that tube amps sound their best when cranked, and it's harder to do that with a 100 watter.

One thing about solid state 300 watt amps that HAS NOT BEEN MENTIONED is that solid state amps reach the RMS with very little harmonic distortion, ie that's 300w of clean watts (hypothetically) where as a 100 watt amp, to reach the 300 watt power output level would have to distort. Watts are watts, and a 300 watt RMS solid state is 3 times more powerful than a 100W RMS Tube when running it at it's RMS, but tube amps shine when cranked beyond their RMS, when the imperfections and harmonic distortion come out to play. A 100 watt tube amp is more likely to crank to 200 watts rather than 300 but that also depends on your power tubes.