As an electric guitar player, your amplifier is a crucial piece of kit. Without it, no one will be able to hear you shred. That would be a great shame! I guess the only drawback to this instrument is the need for a power supply. You can’t run your bass amp without plugging in AC electricity. If you’re looking at adding remote power solutions or simply want to know the overall power consumption then keep reading.
Below we will discuss and test bass amp wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Bass Amp?
The average bass amp uses between 20 to 50 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your bass amp. For example, you can get smaller amps using 25W, while larger options climb to 50W (and much more for commercial equipment.)
The simple reason is due to the internal speaker size. Bigger speakers and components will use more power.
How to Find Out Your Bass Amp Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a bass amp.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the bass amp’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your bass amp to get instant information.
I used one to test my Orange bass amp which gave a live reading of 38.1W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your bass amp you can use this to find the maximum watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Bass Amp Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a bass amp draws. Below is a collection of modern bass amps with their listed power ratings.
| Bass Amp Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Donner Bass Guitar Amp | 30 |
| Orange Crush25 Bass Guitar Combo | 25 |
| Donner 25 Bass Guitar Amplifier | 25 |
| Fender Rumble Studio 40 | 40 |
| Peavey MAX | 100 |
| Coolmusic | 20 |
| Ampeg Rocket Bass | 50 |
| Donner Electric Guitar Amp 30 | 30 |
| Donner 10 Guitar Amplifier | 10 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different bass amps. So you should take the time to check your own amp.
How Much Electricity Does a Bass Amp Use?
You can use bass amp wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your bass amp.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a bass amp drawing 30W would use 30Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 30W bass amp running for 1 hour uses 0.03kWh.
In reality, you use a bass amp for 1 hour a day. This means a bass amp uses about 30Wh or 0.03kWh electricity a day. That’s 0.9kWh a month and 11kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $1.64 a year to play electric guitar for 1 hour every day.
Using a Bass Amp Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your bass amp in an off-grid situation like a power outage, RV, boat, or remote location the information above is important. You can accurately pick the correct power products and work out how long they can run.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to produce AC electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your bass amp. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To play electric guitar, you will need at least 75W power capacity. This will give you enough to use a small to medium amplifier without overloading your equipment.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the bass amp for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use about 30Wh electricity per hour. This is the equivalent to 2.5Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Bass Amp Use Summary
I hope you now have a clear understanding of how many watts a bass amp uses.
As you discovered, a small to medium size amplifier doesn’t use a huge amount of power. You’ll probably only be running it for an hour or two a day so it’s not going to make a massive difference to your total electricity usage. Adding to this, unless you are using a large commercial unit, you can easily power it in a remote location from a battery or portable power station if required.
