Question about Seymour Duncan Powerstage 170 - maximum wattage at 16 ohm versus maximum capacity 2 x 12 cab

MrCrossroads83

MrCrossroads83

Experienced
Can anyone help me with this question?

My Seymour Duncan Powerstage 170 delivers 170 watts at peak and provides cabs with 4 ohms, 8 ohms or 16 ohms.
My 2 x 12 cab is equipped with two Celestion Creambacks and can handle 120 watts.
It is wired to 16 ohms.
The Powerstage is dialed in to 3 o`clock which means that the master volume is up to about 80 – 90 %.
The cabinet worked well yesterday and everything sounded great.
Does the Powerstage deliver 170 watts at 16 ohms or is it half of the power due to the fact that it is not connect to 8 ohms?

Greetings to everyone and have a nice day :)
 
Daz-lp said:
Hi i got this from another forum with the designer.
“The main difference for solid state is how many watts are being produced. The PS will give 170 w with a 4 ohm setup, 85 w with an 8 ohm setup, and 42 w with a 16 ohm one.”
Hope this helps
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Yeah, thanks :)
That helps a lot :cool:
I am quite impressed, how LOUD this 16 ohm have felt at the rehearsal!
 
Even if 42W is enough for your needs, I'd rewire the cab to be 4 ohms, that way you could run the ps170 volume much lower so that you have more headroom and don't risk to make it distort/clip
 
DLC86 said:
Even if 42W is enough for your needs, I'd rewire the cab to be 4 ohms, that way you could run the ps170 volume much lower so that you have more headroom and don't risk to make it distort/clip
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Ok, thanks for the advice but I would like to get the cab rewired to 8 ohms as I do not want to risk the speakers to blow when I run the Powerstage with more than 120 watts.
 
MrCrossroads83 said:
Ok, thanks for the advice but I would like to get the cab rewired to 8 ohms as I do not want to risk the speakers to blow when I run the Powerstage with more than 120 watts.
Click to expand...
I don't think that's possible without changing speakers, if it's currently 16 ohm they're probably two 8 ohm speakers wired in series, rewiring them in parallel would make the cab 4 ohm.

Anyway there's no risk if you don't crank the volume 😉

PS: with a multimeter it is also possible to fine tune the axe fx (or fm3) output to be sure to not go beyond the rated wattage of your cab. It's a bit lenghty procedure but could be worth to have an idea on how to set all up
 
Ok, thanks for the detailled answer. On the other hand I did not hear any clipping at mastervolume about 80-90 % so maybe its ok.
I don`t want to change the speakers at all, they sound great :)
 
MrCrossroads83 said:
I am quite impressed, how LOUD this 16 ohm have felt at the rehearsal!
Click to expand...
At 42 watts, you’ll likely still be making all the volume you need. Even many of the bands playing bigger venues have moved to smaller wattage amps these days. If it turns out you actually do need more volume for a large stage, a second 16 ohm 2x12 would get you a lot more than wattage increase alone. And the added cab would also give you an 8 ohm total load, giving you a lot more air moving, and higher wattage to boot!
 
MrCrossroads83 said:
Ok, thanks for the detailled answer. On the other hand I did not hear any clipping at mastervolume about 80-90 % so maybe its ok.
I don`t want to change the speakers at all, they sound great :)
Click to expand...
Well, if there's distortion only on transients or if it's still a low percentage THD at that volume, you wouldn't probably perceive it as distortion but it's there regardless.

IMHO rewiring the cab for 4 ohm is worth a shot, there's a chance it will sound even better with the added headroom (and you'd probably end up setting the volume of the ps170 at less than 50% instead of 80-90%)
 
DLC86 said:
Well, if there's distortion only on transients or if it's still a low percentage THD at that volume, you wouldn't probably perceive it as distortion but it's there regardless.

IMHO rewiring the cab for 4 ohm is worth a shot, there's a chance it will sound even better with the added headroom (and you'd probably end up setting the volume of the ps170 at less than 50% instead of 80-90%)
Click to expand...
Rewiring to 4 ohm would be possible without changing the speakers?
Sorry but since 1995 I informed myself about many aspects of gear but never thought about impendance, speakers and things like that at all...

Maybe it is because I changed to external cabs in the last three years.
Before I always played combos and sometimes changed the speakers.
Then I only had to see that the speakers that I exchanged had the same ohm value :D
 
MrCrossroads83 said:
Rewiring to 4 ohm would be possible without changing the speakers?
Sorry but since 1995 I informed myself about many aspects of gear but never thought about impendance, speakers and things like that at all...

Maybe it is because I changed to external cabs in the last three years.
Before I always played combos and sometimes changed the speakers.
Then I only had to see that the speakers that I exchanged had the same ohm value :D
Click to expand...

Yes should be totally possible, as I explained here:

DLC86 said:
if it's currently 16 ohm they're probably two 8 ohm speakers wired in series, rewiring them in parallel would make the cab 4 ohm.
Click to expand...
 
This is great information. I just picked up a Power stage 200 last night and as I was trying it for the first time with the Axe FX 3 I was wondering why my set up was not very loud. I guess it is because my cab is indeed a 2x12 wired to 16 ohms.
 
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