Half Stacks and Full stacks

[facetious11]

Im kinda new to stacks, ive been using combos 4 a while i was just wanting to learn more about them. How does a full stack create more volume if it is just more speakers, so it seems to me a full stack would be waste, because 50 watts is 50 watts right? No matter how many speakers. Thats just my thought, correct me if im wrong. What really made me think of this is that i want an 18 watt marshall, but im thinking it would be way too quiet, but there is a little extra extension cab and i wondered if that would do any good for the volume.

[Pb Derigable]

Im kinda new to stacks, ive been using combos 4 a while i was just wanting to learn more about them. How does a full stack create more volume if it is just more speakers, so it seems to me a full stack would be waste, because 50 watts is 50 watts right? No matter how many speakers. Thats just my thought, correct me if im wrong. What really made me think of this is that i want an 18 watt marshall, but im thinking it would be way too quiet, but there is a little extra extension cab and i wondered if that would do any good for the volume.

I have an extension cab port for my Bass combo. The only reason i could think of plugging an extenison would be for a 15in speaker to get more bass. But my big rig is a set a set of 4x10 and 1x15. It's not lounder, but it's defintly a stronger feeling. I never understood the reason for a full stack, maybe you could crank the amp up for tonal purpose and not blow the speakers with a full stack. I don't think ive seen page with a full stack, but he had his amp rewired for reasons im not sure of. plus unless yuore in a small club, youre cabs get miked to one speaker only. i don't want to be wrong here, so ill try to dig more up.

[Pb Derigable]

Prepare for shop talk. or science content.

I got it now, if you have a 200watt amp and a 4x12 cab rated for 200watts. If you add another 4x12 you're still only getting 200 watts from that amp over 8 speakers. so it won't be louder. but if you have a 400watt amp, turning it up will destroy you halfstack 4x12, so to get louder you add an extra cab so it would be 400watts across 8 speakers. but still 400watts split between 8 speakers is 50 watt a speaker but a 200watt amp among 4 speakers still gets you 50 watts a speaker, but the 400 watt setup may sound louder due to the amount of speakers. Now there is a thing called impedance is a term used in car sub woofers and it may have some importance in Guitar amps, but it's is only used for connectability reasons and other issues. Most full stacks have two amps on top in which the second amp and cab are for backup reasons and to make youre penis look bigger.

This is from wikipedia. It tells the story of how the stack came to be

The classic Marshall Stack is one of the defining images behind loud rock music. A full stack consists of one head containing the actual amplifier, on top of two stacked 4x12s, which are loudspeaker cabinets each containing four 12 inch loudspeakers arranged in a square layout. The top cabinet has the top two loudspeakers angled slightly upwards, giving the Marshall stack a distinctive appearance. When a single cabinet is used, the complete unit is called a half stack.

In the early-mid 1960s, Pete Townshend and John Entwistle of The Who were directly responsible for the creation and widespread use of stacked Marshall cabinets. Pete later remarked that John started using Marshall Stacks in order to hear himself over Keith Moon's drums and Townshend himself also had to use them just to be heard over John. In fact, the very first 100 watt Marshall Amps were created specifically for Entwistle and Townshend when they were looking to replace some equipment that had been stolen from them. They approached Jim Marshall asking if it would be possible for him to make their new rigs more powerful than those they had lost, to which they were told that the cabinets would have to double in size. They agreed and six rigs of this prototype were manufactured, of which two each were given to Townshend and Entwistle and one each to Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott of The Small Faces. These new "double" cabinets (each containing 8 speakers) proved too heavy and awkward to be transported practically, so The Who returned to Marshall asking if they could be cut in half and stacked, and although the double cabinets were left intact, the existing single cabinet models (each containing 4 speakers) were modified for stacking, which has become the norm for years to follow.[6]

Entwistle and Townshend both continued expanding and experimenting with their rigs, until (at a time when most bands still used 50 to 100W amps with single cabinets) they were both using twin Stacks, with each Stack powered by new experimental prototype 200W amps, each connected to the guitar via a Y-splitter. This, in turn, also had a strong influence on the band's contemporaries at the time, with Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience both following suit. However, due to the cost of transport, The Who could not afford to take their full rigs with them for their earliest overseas tours, thus Cream and Hendrix were the first to be seen to use this setup on a wide scale, particularly in America. Ironically, although The Who pioneered and directly contributed to the development of the "classic" Marshall sound and setup with their equipment being built/tweaked to their personal specifications, they would only use Marshalls for a couple of years before moving on to using Sound City equipment. Cream, and particularly Hendrix, would be widely (and incorrectly) credited with the invention of Marshall Stacks.

The search for volume was taken on its next logical step with the advent of "daisy chaining" two or more amplifiers together. As most amplifier channels have two inputs, the guitar signal being present on both sockets, the cunning musician hooked the spare input of one channel to an input on another amp. By 1969 Hendrix was daisy chaining four Stacks, incorporating both Marshall and Sound City amplifiers, as recommended to him by Townshend.[7]

This competition for greater volume and greater extremes was taken even further in the early 1970s by the band Blue Öyster Cult, which used an entire wall of full-stack Marshall Amplifiers as their backdrop. Bands such as Slayer and Yngwie Malmsteen also use walls of Marshalls. Both Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman of Slayer can be seen playing in front of a total of 24 cabinets, and Yngwie has used as many as 31. However, it is usually the case that far less are actually powered, as using this many could cause serious problems with the overall sound mix of a live show. In most cases these are "dummy cabs," which are onstage for visual impact, not actually played through. For ease of transportation and lifting, most of these actually do not even contain any speakers. The same goes for some of the amp heads in a scenario like this, as they are just the wooden frame with, in fact, no heavy inner workings.

[yahyoubetcha]

Wow, excellant background info. Thanks pb.

One other thing to keep in mind too is that sound is air moving and 8 speakers will move more air than 4. Maybe not louder, but more.

[Pb Derigable]

Wow, excellant background info. Thanks pb.

One other thing to keep in mind too is that sound is air moving and 8 speakers will move more air than 4. Maybe not louder, but more.

Exactly,thank you for helping me wiht another point i was trying to make. It's like in car subwoofers. a 500watta amp going into a very good 10in is not going to sound as loud as the same amp going into 2x12in woofers. same watts but more air movement.

[huw]

One other thing to keep in mind too is that sound is air moving and 8 speakers will move more air than 4.

Bingo!

And seeing as how sound is all about moving air, 8 speakers will be louder than 4, even conected to the same amp.

Maybe not louder, but more.

Nope - more is louder. It's simple physics. Just don't expect twice the number of speakers to equal twice as loud - the increase is more of an exponential curve.