Is it safe to use multiple boosts at once?

[Ivan]

I've been experimenting with using two boosts at once... sometimes both cranked to 20dbs each.... and often the amp itself is cranked too.

Is it safe for the tubes in the amp?
What about any pedals after the boosts?

[Yoni]

yes

[Ivan]

good. I'm guessing the only real danger is shorter life in the tubes.

[tomorrowstars]

Might not be safe for your ears!

[mr tom]

I have had bad luck with boost/OD pedals and my Vibro Champ - the 6V6 gave up the ghost once, and I haven't pressed my luck since. Other than that amp, no issues.

[Tim Bowen]

As for what you're doing there, I'd say it will likely shorten tube life, as has been mentioned.

I recall Zachary Vex saying that it was quite possible to "blow up an amp" by diming and cascading both channels of his 'Super Duper' booster ped, which contains two "Super Hard On" circuits, one channel of which has a master. However, Z's a character, and it's tough to say whether he was being dead serious or spoofing a bit. I have that pedal, and have never found the practical need to dime all three of the knobs (the master for the one channel is the key player, as to practicality).

I do use dual boosts fairly regularly. Sometimes I set up two different volume bumps (always low to moderate gain) above the volume of the base rig, and sometimes I feed one boost into the other to promote more gain, saturation, and sustain. I've also used dual boosts with different EQ characters in a variety of ways - boost with more high end after a boost with more of an inherent mids character, and vice versa, and etc. Anytime I use multiple boosts, at least one of them has controls for both pre-gain and post-gain (master); this way, you can get "the tones" and still deal with practicality (and not put undue stress on the front end of a tuber).

As for pedals after the dimed boosts. What sort of pedals? As mentioned, if you're running that degree of db boost into other gainers (OD's and whatnot), it's mostly going to compress the living snot out of them. As for modulation and delay peds, their inputs are almost certainly going to be noticeably clipped when hit with what you describe, even those that have respectable headroom. I use time-based effects with good headroom after boosts all the time, but they'd come up short with your routing scenario for sure. The only way to be reasonably safe with not clipping input levels of other peds with your heavy duty approach is to place boosts dead last in the chain, before the amp.

[Ivan]

I'm mainly just experimenting and making weird sounds with the boosts, so Im not worried about compression or extreme clipping.
However I wasn't sure if the output dimed would cause an overload in either amp or other pedals.

I still wonder though... what would be the effect of 10+ dimed boosts all in a row!

[11 Gauge]

The Soulsonic Four Banger (not made any more) was a really cool 4 boosts in a box - Rangemaster, op amp, SHO, and Orman mini booster (mu amp).

You can't kill an amp per se with a boost. Tube stages are simply driven into blocking distortion, and you won't want to play with that kinda tone for very long. It is possible to fry speakers with a solid state amp if you push the power amp into extreme clipping, but that's the same thing as cranking up a stereo beyond a reasonable amount of distortion.

Vex is a huge character, and has all sorts of colorful descriptions for his pedals. I'll leave it at that, lest I get into trouble.