Two amps through one cab?

[Justinvs]

Is there an adapter that would allow me to run two amps through one speaker cab without causing damage? I normally play bass, but occasionally switch to lead, and rather go to the hassle of hauling two complete rigs around I want to get a head to play my strat through and put it through the same Carvin cab I amp my bass with. I don't mind turning amps on and off when I switch, but don't want to change wires during a set.

Can I use a Y adapter without worrying about damaging the amps?

Thanks!

Justin

 

[SamBooka]

Hi Justin,
Dont recommend a Y adaptor.
Think of it this way. One amp will see the speakers and it will see in parallel the secondary of the other amps output transformer. An AB box would work but I would be nervous about that too if you forgot to turn off one of the amps. Safer to just stack the heads and when you switch swap the cable.
Dont be tempted to use two speaker cables and leave both plugged in and just swap at the back of the cab. An amp that is on with a cable that goes nowhere will blow up much faster than an amp that has no speaker cable plugged in at all.

I am sure there are other ways to do it.. looking forward to reading them

 

[Justinvs]

Thanks for the quick reply!

That was my concern, too. But, I need to find a way to switch it without physically crawling around behind the amp, as usually we play in very small venues and there isn't room to move around. An A/B box might well be the way to go.

Thanks again.

 

[Joisey]

Tonebone has several head and cab switchers. Solid state or tube or both I believe. A little spendy though and I have zero experience with their products.

 

[Teletale]

tt

 

[Wayne Alexander]

If you're running a single speaker separately from each amp in a 2 speaker cabinet that will work, though you may get some phase cancellation, it won't hurt anything. Otherwise, you need one of the Radial Amp head switchers or a similar product. It'll cost a few hundred dollars, it takes a lot of parts and circuitry to allow this without blowing one of the amps. You can definitely NOT connect two amps to one speaker cab at the same time - you could easily blow both amps.

 

[vinman]

i'm talking off the top of my head, but how about making a speaker cable from the amp bottom with a male jack on one end to go into the cab and a female end that you can have around the front of the amp so you can switch it without climbing around back. If you want you could get a small project box and mount a female jack in that and velcro it to the top of the cab somewhere. It would be a fairly short cable, so I wouldn't worry about any loss. or you could make the project box thingy and besides the female jack to the cab, you could put a second jack in with a dummy load of some sort inside the box attached to that jack and keep the amp you're not using plugged in to that so there is no accidental playing through an amp with no speaker load. Like i said, it was just off the top of my head, so please don't take it off.

 

[ThermionicScott]

Justin, what are the two amps in question? Do you depend on the "guitar" amp for distortion? (You might see where I'm going with this...)

- Scott

 

[Justinvs]

Thanks all!

Scott, at the moment I would be using an old Silvertone for the 6 string, and a Peavy Max for bass, but I'm looking for a Crate or something similar for more versatility. We're a country/rock band, and generally play small bars, so space is very much a problem, hence the reason I don't like carrying two full rigs. That and I hate dragging my old vintage Super Reverb around just to play one or two songs a night, especially given the wear and tear on it.

I've tried running my Strat through the Bass Max, but even with effects it sounds flat, not to mention all the dirty looks I get from the rest of the band while I'm changing everything from 4 to 6 strings! <G>

 

[ThermionicScott]

Not sure which Max yours is, but the answer is a 5F8A head, or if you need reverb, a Dual Showman Reverb head.

- Scott

 

[eugenedunn]

For your guitar, why not try a Direct Box with cabinet simulation, and plug directly into your PA? Then all you need to bring is your Bass amp and cab.

 

[neocaster]

I have a stereo 4x12 cabinet (Vox ad412) that will accept 2 mono connections at 8 ohms each and route each to the two indicated speakers (L / R) If this is something you can use, I'll find you a schematic. If you want both amps driving all speakers, I don't know how you would do that.