A question for the electronics gurus....

So, yesterday I picked up a second guitar amp so that I can run my guitar signal in stereo. Well, with my limited electronics knowledge I wired up three mono 1/4" jacks into a project box in parallel and plugged in all the cables. It works as far as splitting the signal, I just wonder if I am losing anything in the process. I also notice some hum and upon researching online can only come to the conclusion that it has to do with grounding. Is this passive option futile? Or is there some way to make it work? I figured the less components the better for the sound but I could be very wrong. Any thoughts?

I know there are projects for transformer'ed ABY boxes that deal with the grounding issues. Not too difficult to build, and still pretty inexpensive.

You would definitely be experiencing "tone suck" from this method. Your guitar is now seeing the paralleled load of whatever each side is plugged into. Just in the same way that too many volume/tone pots in parallel on a guitar will suck the life out of it, so will loading the guitar signal in this way.

You are also correct that your hum is from a ground loop.

As mentioned, you need to do a transformer-isolated splitter in order to most effectively solve the ground issue. Also, something buffering the splitter would help keep your tone better.

Then again, if you figure out how to solve your hum and your current setup sounds good to you, then that's all that matters!

You would definitely be experiencing "tone suck" from this method. Your guitar is now seeing the paralleled load of whatever each side is plugged into. Just in the same way that too many volume/tone pots in parallel on a guitar will suck the life out of it, so will loading the guitar signal in this way.

You are also correct that your hum is from a ground loop.

As mentioned, you need to do a transformer-isolated splitter in order to most effectively solve the ground issue. Also, something buffering the splitter would help keep your tone better.

Then again, if you figure out how to solve your hum and your current setup sounds good to you, then that's all that matters!

Hey thank you for the info!! I think I may have found a reverb pedal that will solve my stereo issue and give reverb to my "reverb-less" amps. Thanks again!!

I was also going to recommend getting some sort of effect that has stereo outputs, but that could still have ground loop issues. The outputs would be buffered, but I highly doubt if they were transformer isolated.

Be sure both your amps are plugged in next to each other on the same power outlet. If you get a little bit of ground noise, first try playing with your cables running to each amp to see if that can improve things.

I was also going to recommend getting some sort of effect that has stereo outputs, but that could still have ground loop issues. The outputs would be buffered, but I highly doubt if they were transformer isolated.

Be sure both your amps are plugged in next to each other on the same power outlet. If you get a little bit of ground noise, first try playing with your cables running to each amp to see if that can improve things.

First of all, thanks for the info! When you say "playing with your cables running to each amp to see if that can improve things" do you mean test each amp singly first? I am not sure I quite follow this part....