Crayon Sky Music

i need to know about this amp. its the fender stage 1600?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fender-Stage-1600-Amp_W0QQitemZ190281164105QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL?hash=item190281164105&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318#ebayphotohosting

With a solid state amplifier (like this one) as the total impedance on the amp goes lower, the amp tries to produce more power.

Specifically, with the 1600, it produces a maximum of 100 watts into an 8 ohm load. With a 4 ohm load, it will produce a maximum of 160 watts.

You do not want to put a lower load on the amp than what is specified. If you were to put a 2 ohm load on this amp, it would try to produce more than 160 watts. But, it would either shutdown due to a thermal overload, or burn up.

How does one speaker or two figure in? This is where you’re going to have to know a very basic electronics formula known as Ohms law (and everyone who plays an instrument with an amp should know this).

If you have one speaker with an impedance of 8 ohms, then that’s your total load. If you put them in parallel, then the equation to calculate the total load is:

(Z1 * Z2) / (Z1 + Z2) where Z1 is the impedance of the first speaker, and Z2 the second. So, for this example:

(8 * / (8 +
64 / 16 = 4

If the speakers were wired in series, then you just add the impedances together (8 + 8 ), and would have 16 ohms. You would not hurt the amp by putting a higher load on it, but it would only be able to produce about 50 watts before it started clipping.

There are a lot of good examples of series and parallel speaker wiring on the net. Just search for those terms, and you’ll see how it works.

Finally, you said that you can’t have more than 100 watts. If this were a tube amp and you were wanting to get power tube distortion then you might have a valid concern (although that would be so loud you would not be able to have children later).

Since this is a solid state amp, don’t worry about the maximum wattage too much. For starters, the sound pressure level difference (given the same speakers) of a 100 watt amp versus a 160 watt amp is barely (if at all) perceiptable. Just don’t turn it up all the way. Second, with a solid state amp, you do not want to clip the power amp section (it sounds pretty bad when you do). So, you’ll want as much headroom as you can get so that the power amp section stays clean. Get your distortion (if you use it) from the preamp or a pedal.

Good luck.

Greetings from Austin, TX

Ken

Review Mosrite M88 guitar thru Fender amp Semie Moseley