Seymour Duncan PowerStage

spanny

spanny

Active member
Hey all! I'm a tube amp guy but I have been having a lot of fun dialing in my Helix ar home and Im slowly starting to consider making the switch to using it live in place of my tube amps. Has anyone had experience using a SD PowerStage to power a cab?

Looking to see how it would compare to a standard tube power amp (Im currently running into the effects return of my Friedman at home). Im also looking to see if the small one (the 170 watt version) would be loud enough using for both guitar and bass for shows where we don't mic through a PA, or if we should go bigger for guitar and/or bass.

Thanks in advance for any advice!
 
I was thinking of getting one of those and then was thinking of getting a Fender FR-12 instead. I'm pretty happy with my Orange Super 100 Combo so will probably just stick with that for now.

I'm curious what people say about those.
 
The 170 has less tone controls than the 200. They work fine and get loud enough but they don’t want to see 16 ohms which is what many 4x12s are. They will sound thin and wimpy into a 16 ohm cab. Ideally you want a 4ohm load for full range punch of the amp.
 
I have a PowerStage 700. LOVE having the B-M-T knobs to trim the sound depending on my volume or how I set up preset. No issues with mine at all. Sounds fantastic/transparent!
 
I am using the Fractal stuff now too...sold my tube combo and Fireball 100 after I found it's close enough and waaaay more versatile for playing covers...or for that matter, anything else I'd want to play. But...I 'm still using my old Marshall 9005 rack power amp with the AX8/FM9 into a 4x12 at practice.
I was close to snagging the Duncan 200 after seeing the Blues Saraceno vid of it but I like having the rack mount power amp..just a bit cleaner to transport and can plug into the Furman without an extension cord being involved.
 
I run a Quad Cortex thru a Powerstage 170 into a cab. It's about 96db loud when the knob is turned <- 9 O'clock or 25% of the way up. This was through a Mesa 4x12. Sounded great and gets way louder than that.

Do not buy a Powerstage 200. They have issues with input clipping. When I had a working relationship with Seymour Duncan they sent me and my buddies several. When the PS200 was cranked all the way it couldn't get louder than 90db+/-. It didn't matter if it was a Quad Cortex, Axe-FX, Helix, random preamp pedals, straight up just a guitar in with 13k Ohm pickups.. Input clipped. Seymour Duncan said it was a known issue. We kindly returned them and got PS170s, no issues.
 
SpiderWars said:
The 170 has less tone controls than the 200. They work fine and get loud enough but they don’t want to see 16 ohms which is what many 4x12s are. They will sound thin and wimpy into a 16 ohm cab. Ideally you want a 4ohm load for full range punch of the amp.
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The Guitar Player for Forbidden is using a Power stage combined with a Fender Tone X into a 16ohm Cab.....It didn't sound whimpy to me.
 
vultures said:
I run a Quad Cortex thru a Powerstage 170 into a cab. It's about 96db loud when the knob is turned <- 9 O'clock or 25% of the way up. This was through a Mesa 4x12. Sounded great and gets way louder than that.

Do not buy a Powerstage 200. They have issues with input clipping. When I had a working relationship with Seymour Duncan they sent me and my buddies several. When the PS200 was cranked all the way it couldn't get louder than 90db+/-. It didn't matter if it was a Quad Cortex, Axe-FX, Helix, random preamp pedals, straight up just a guitar in with 13k Ohm pickups.. Input clipped. Seymour Duncan said it was a known issue. We kindly returned them and got PS170s, no issues.
Click to expand...
Does the 200 have an input clip LED? I can’t even remember. I know it has some sort of clip LED and I don’t have clipping but I set it up a long time ago and haven’t messed with it since. I have a Line Level control so I can set that as low as I want and I can see clipping on the rack effects (which also have input and output levels). So I have it setup such that I see clipping in the rack before I see clipping on the 200.
 
SpiderWars said:
The 170 has less tone controls than the 200. They work fine and get loud enough but they don’t want to see 16 ohms which is what many 4x12s are. They will sound thin and wimpy into a 16 ohm cab. Ideally you want a 4ohm load for full range punch of the amp.
Click to expand...

I compared an 8 ohm cab to a 4 ohm cab (both 2x12s with GBs) with my fm3/ps170 and didn’t really notice any different running my rig at normal gig volume.
 
SpiderWars said:
Does the 200 have an input clip LED? I can’t even remember. I know it has some sort of clip LED and I don’t have clipping but I set it up a long time ago and haven’t messed with it since. I have a Line Level control so I can set that as low as I want and I can see clipping on the rack effects (which also have input and output levels). So I have it setup such that I see clipping in the rack before I see clipping on the 200.
Click to expand...

It does have an input clipping LED or "Preamp Clip". When you lower the output volume of a preamp pedal, modeler or effects so that it doesn't clip, you then have to crank the level of the PS200. Eventually you get to a point where the PS200 is at 2 to 3 O'clock and the Power Amp Clip LED lights up, you no longer get any volume from the PS200 and it's about 90db +/-. Meanwhile same exact set up, plugged in a PS170 and no problems.
 
vultures said:
It does have an input clipping LED or "Preamp Clip". When you lower the output volume of a preamp pedal, modeler or effects so that it doesn't clip, you then have to crank the level of the PS200. Eventually you get to a point where the PS200 is at 2 to 3 O'clock and the Power Amp Clip LED lights up, you no longer get any volume from the PS200 and it's about 90db +/-. Meanwhile same exact set up, plugged in a PS170 and no problems.
Click to expand...
OK thanks. I never get the volume over half so that’s probably why I never encountered issues.
 
I had a 170 for about 30 seconds. Sounded like dogshit but I was using a 16 ohm cab. It was also already opened and I assumed it had been returned due to some type of defect so it was sent back
 
Has anyone experienced using the 170 for bass? Will that be enough wattage to power an Ampeg 6x10
 
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