Proud owner of several Sound City products here (Master Lead 50, Master 100, 2x12…also a Fryette 2/90/2 rack). Thank you for making exceptional sounding products. I have a question on the cab and a few questions on the pairing heads and cabs:
Just curious as to the speaker efficiency of the Fane recreations in your cabs…I assume you have a dB rating for these? They sound good and also loud (which is its own kind of good) but I’m used to 1x12s with 100 dB efficiency speakers so I can’t tell how much perceived volume increase is the speaker efficiency versus an additional speaker. I see ‘high efficiency’ in the product photo of the opened cab on your site, which also made me curious.
One sees various recommendations for the speaker wattage necessary to handle heads of various power. Obvious ideal matches with a ‘cab needs double the amp plus some’ formula would be 100W > 280W 4x12 or 50W > 140W 2x12. I have run 100W > 165W 1x12s (90/75) matches on occasion and very often run 60W (per side of the 2/90/2) > 1x12s (90/75) and have not blown a speaker. I also almost never run amps full out in these scenarios. Do you have an upper limit of what you regard as ‘safe’ for the Sound City 2x12? Can it pair with the Master 100 if the latter is not cranked? My next question is somewhat related…
Thus far I only use either the 16 ohm outs on the 50 & 100 OR the 4/8 outs at any one time. Is it possible to use both the single 16 ohm AND the 4/8 simultaneously? (Assuming the 4/8 output matching the cab or cab combination matches whatever cab or cabs are connected to those outputs.) I would think this would be very bad, BUT the reason I ask is it would allow pairing of the 2x12 (8 ohm out) with a 1x12 (16 ohm out).
Running the Master Lead 50 in stereo with another 50W Hiwatt style amp, powered from the same outlet, yields a very small amount of ground hum. Do you recommend any product for rectifying this? (Ebtech hum eliminator?)
You won’t perceive much of a volume difference because of relative speaker sensitivity. You wouldn’t buy a less sensitive speaker to act as an attenuator,
The power handling of a speaker also relates to the type of cabinet it is in. A sealed cabinet creates some back pressure on the cone(s), as opposed to an open back cab. Specific to the SC212 with Fane F70G speakers, you would have a very difficult time blowing a speaker with any one of our heads. I don’t think any of our 212 or 412 cabs have ever been pushed to a point of driver failure. Fane power handling specs are conservative too.
3 and 4. A Fryette ZMACS and Power Station 100 would allow you to combine a lot of amps, cabs and attenuate them with ease. There are certainly other answers to your questions, but adding these items would offer tremendous flexibility.
Nope, had the volume at about 11 oclock. I thought I blew my tubes but it turned out to be the speakers. This was back in 2012. I contacted Fryette about getting replacements, but they were out. They did offer to sell me some 75 watters but I was never really happy with the P50Es so I went with something else at the time (Eminence Wizards). When the Fane F70s came out I started using those, and they’re currently my favorite speaker.
Anyway, speaker wattage ratings are a generalization. If you don’t play loud you don’t have much to worry about. If you play at high volumes you’re going to blow speakers, unless they’re way overrated compared to your amp output.
I also burned out the voice coil of a P-50E using a D60 once, and that was in a D412. Tube amps can put out a ton of peak instantaneous power. I replaced it with a new P-50E.
I’ve actually been meaning to ask if it’s possible to get a recone kit for this. I’d hate for the magnet and chassis to just go to waste.