Re: 100W Non-Master Amplifiers Scare Me...
Well, being older than dirt, I do remember the days when guys actually used these amps in clubs. Dual Showmans, Twins and Quad Reverbs or even the rather large Super Six Reverb; Marshalls; Ampeg V-4s; Acoustic 150s or 270s; Sunn Model Ts, Concerts or Coliseums--those were all common amps in dance clubs of the late '60 and '70s. Nowadays, of course, it's rare to see a 50/60 watt version of any of those amps. A sixty watt Ampeg V-2 with its larger and ported 412 could darn near tear your head off! Perhaps the worst amp of its day, the Solid State Vox Super Beatle still put out over 120 watts RMS--and those 412s with the twin horns could be really piercing.
And don't forget, a lot of these groups would daisy-chain amps together. Mega PAs were really in their infancy. I remember hearing one group at an outdoor concert in Seattle in 1969--you could hear this Les Paul Gold Top with P-90s and that Marshall 1959 full stack clearly a mile away!
One of the bands that I used to regularly book for gigs at my university was a guitar/bass/B-3/drums group, and the guitarist used a pair of brown 1963 Fender Concert amps, along with an Echoplex. What a great sound! And the guitarist in another group I used to follow played through a Sunn 1200S (4 X 6550s) with a matching Sunn 215 loaded with JBL 15" D-140Fs. He used a Gibson 335, and somehow managed to control the feedback perfectly. Amazing!
I think one of the things that is SO different today is that players play with so much more gain and distortion. And good distorted tone is so much easier to get today than it was in the Sixties. Back then, getting my Band Master to distort was "...just asking to get grounded for a week!", because it would have to be so loud. Thank God for modern technology, but some of those amps sounded really good! I don't think Paul Kossoff is using a pedal on "All Right Now". Neither is Leslie West on "Mississippi Queen", or Clapton on "Crossroads". Certainly those tones are rippin', and classic--yet they are very clean compared to the tones modern amps are capable of producing. Every time I walk through Guitar Center, it hits me that we have a whole generation of kids who can't play a note unless their TSLs or Rectifiers have the gains maxed out.
My main gigging amp these days is a Mesa Mark IV EVM combo (variable power up to 85 watts) with a 112 EVM Theile cab under it--more than enough for most of the places I play. In fact, more and more I'm using either my DC-3 112 combo (35 watts) or a Maverick 212 (30 watts Class A). The trick is of course, to use an amp appropriate to the size of the venue; and larger, more sophisticated PAs are making big amps obsolete.
But without a doubt, the amp I enjoy playing the most is my Mesa Mark III Coliseum 200 watt half-stack. I love the power, the feel of digging into the strings--levelling a small city! It's a glorious sounding amp, but over the years it gets played less and less.
Technology changes things...you don't see as many 427 Hemis, or 396 Super Sports as you used to, either. And just like the gaz guzzling hot rods of that era, those big amps are SO much fun!
Bill
