Choose a bass amp by where you'll play. Low notes take far more power to reproduce than guitar notes, so a bass amp needs several times the watts of a guitar amp to be heard at the same volume. For home practice, 15 to 30 watts is enough. To rehearse with a drummer, look at 100 to 200 watts. For gigs, 300 watts and up, often a head with a separate cabinet.
How many watts do you need?
| Where you play | Power | Typical speaker |
|---|---|---|
| Home practice | 15 to 30 W | 8" or 10" |
| Rehearsal with a drummer | 100 to 200 W | 12" or 15", or 2x10 |
| Small to medium gigs | 300 W and up | Head + 2x10, 4x10 or 1x15 cab |
Bigger speakers, or more of them, move more air and give a fuller low end.
Combo or head and cabinet?
A combo has the amp and speaker in one box: simpler and cheaper. A head is the amp alone and plugs into one or more cabinets; it's lighter to carry in parts and grows with you. Check the impedance: the cabinet's ohms must match what the head can drive (most solid-state heads give full power at 4 ohms).
Thomann had 343 bass amps in stock on October 19, 2026: combos at a median of $500 and heads at $879. Markbass has the most models (52).
Good bass amps for each situation
Home: Ampeg RB-108, $188
30 watts into an 8-inch speaker, a 3-band EQ, an overdrive switch, aux in and headphone out. #5 of 85 solid-state bass combos.
Rehearsal: Fender Rumble 100 V3, $401
100 watts into a 12-inch Eminence speaker with overdrive and a contour switch: loud enough for most rehearsals. #3 of 85 solid-state bass combos.
Small gigs: Fender Rumble 200, $781
A 15-inch combo with a tweeter: 140 watts on its own, 200 watts with an extra cabinet. #4 of 85 solid-state bass combos.
Head: Ampeg Venture V3, $524
A compact 300-watt head (at 4 ohms) with SVT and B15 voicings and overdrive. #2 of 79 solid-state bassheads.
Cabinet: Fender Rumble 115 Cabinet V3, $479
A 1x15 cabinet for a head, or to add volume to a Rumble combo. The highest-ranked 1x15 cab we track: #1 of 17 1x15 bass cabs.
Questions
Is 100 watts enough for a bass amp?
For rehearsing with a drummer, usually yes. For gigs without PA support, aim for 300 watts or more.
Can I use a guitar amp for bass?
Only quietly. Low notes at volume can damage a guitar speaker; get a bass amp.
How we measured. Counts and medians: every bass amp Thomann listed as in stock on October 19, 2026, by Thomann's categories, converted from euros at the European Central Bank rate. Products show today's price and rank, updated every night.
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Denis Kataev runs AudioFu. Every night the site records the prices of more than 38,000 instruments and studio tools at Thomann, and he writes about what those numbers show: what got cheaper, what just arrived, and which discounts are real.
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