how do half-stack guitar amps work in wats?

Answer 1

You can get half-stacks anywhere from 50 watts to 200 watts depending on the manufacturer and the rating of the head. The important thing is to be sure that the cabinet is rated for the same amount of watts (or more) as the head -- you'll smoke your cabinet if your head is rated for more watts than your cabinet. Most manufacturers match up certain heads with certain cabinets, so they take a lot of the guesswork out of it.

Answer 2

Example: if you have a 50 watt Marshall, tube, head on a half stack, it still creates 50 watts of RMS sound but you need, but don't have to, change the ohm settings on the back of the head. At this time, I forget what ohm setting to use for half stacks. Using a whole stack, 2 cabinets with 4 12" speakers, that's typical for Marshall, you would change the ohm setting again and I think the full stack is 16 ohms and you would have twice the sound coverage due to the 4 extra speakers but still would be 50 watts. I think a half stack would require the ohm setting to be 8 ohms, but not positive.
Mack

Answer 3

More speakers do not mean more volume. More watts do not mean more volume.

The combination of amp efficiency and speaker efficiency makes all the difference. You can have a 25 watt amp that blows away a 200 watt amp. Buy the best speaker cabinet you can first, then work on the amp. If you are buying them separately be sure to check and make sure that the output impedance (ohms) of the amp match that of the cabinet.