Amp Switching?

[Dave W]

Maybe I am not following the post well, but do you need all four speakers going at once? If not, then wire your speakers in each cab stereo thus one speaker to one jack. Then get 4 speakers cables, 2 from each amp with one cable to each cab. Then the a/b box of your choice in front of the amps. You will only hear one speaker at a time out of each cab but if you do not need all the volume then it should be a cheap fix. Maybe you can mic the one cab if you need more overall volume for the crowd. If you need the volume of all 4 speakers then this will not work though, only if you can get by with one speaker facing the crowd and one for your monitor etc. If you get an a/b box that does the a and b thing together you can also run both heads simultaneously, just use your volume pot or a volume pedal if the guitar sounds to loud in the mix. a and b together makes for one powerfull boost for leads. I guess technically you could get 2 inexpensive volume pedals and use those before your heads to increase or kill the signal to either head and have the a and b going all the time, that would give alot of options stage too to blend the amps tones and volume etc. Just go guitar to a and b split to both volume pedals to each head.

[kissfanps]

Yeah, I thought of that after spending all that time thinking up a solution :

It is a great idea if rcc doesn't need all the speakers going at once.

[rccCrawler]

I think I have a solution.

I talked to Avatar, and the purpose of the dual inputs on the cabs is so that cabs can be daisy chained. So if you wanted to run 2 cabs, you take a single output from your head, run it into one of the inputs on one cab, then run another speaker cable from the OTHER input of that cab to one of the inputs of the other cab. This is the purpose of the dual inputs.

The cabs have 8 ohm greenbacks wired in series, meaning the cab is 16 ohms. Supposely running them daisy chained like this puts each pair (of series wired speakers) in parellell, resulting in an 8 ohm load. I think I will measure that with a multi meter just to be sure (yes, I know it won't actually read 8 ohms).

I then only need one output out of whatever device I am running to switch amps.

So now I am going to do some research on the voodoo labs device to see if it does NOT have the delay the tonebone one does.

Thanks for hearing me out and giving me advice guys.

[rccCrawler]

Surf;

I knew you used an amp switcher of some kind, so I was waiting for you to chime in and give advice. Thanks again for your valuable input.

[kissfanps]

thats awesome rcc

that makes life a hell of a lot easier. i didn't realize they did that with their cabs. i guess forget almost everything i have said :oops:

remember though, if you are switching the cabs from amp to amp (i think we established that is what you want to do), you will still need a dummie load

here is an easy diagram

guitar -> pedals -> input of ABY(set to Y) OR the Voodoo running stereo ->output 1 of amp selector -> VM 1 -> 8ohm out -> input 1 of dummie load switcher -> output of dummie load switcher -> 2x12 -> 2x12
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->output 2 of amp selector -> VM 2 -> 8ohm out -> input 2 of dummie load switcher ->

the reason you want the amp selector set to stereo or Y is because you don't want to have to hit two pedals (i.e. the amp selector and dummie load switcher) at the same time time, all u want to do is swithc the cabs from amp to amp

[rccCrawler]

oooohh......OK...... I thought the switcher (either the tonebone or the voodoo labs) would handle the dummy loading for me (????)

[kissfanps]

the tonebone will...they make a product called the Headbone VT

[rccCrawler]

Yes, I was just reading up on that.

The voodoo amp switcher does not handling switching the speaker load.

The HeadBone VT does ....... but has that pesky 11 ms delay......

[kissfanps]

i think you may be hard pressed to find a load switcher that wont have some delay, but i wish i luck

[Dave W]

Weird, I just went to Weber Speakers website to see if they had a dummy load. I was just on the site a couple of days ago and now they have some new products up. Take a look at the "2 head amp switcher". You plug two heads in and with a footswitch you can switch between which head powers the cab. The head not in use goes directly to a 200 watt dummy load. It will work with one cable out the back into your Avatar then daisy chain to the second avatar. It is $150 so its not free but by the time you buy a good A/b pedal and a dummy load thats going to cost too. It look like it will work, check it out. Just google Weber Speakers or WeberVST. Good Luck!

[kissfanps]

sweet find!

thats a lot better than the $259 for the headbone vt

[rccCrawler]

Can't seem to find any reviews of it though .....

.... the other problem with the HeadBone (and I think the weber unit) is that you can't have anything in the effects loop of either amp. I have delay and EQ in my loop....

[rccCrawler]

I'm still at a loss as to why I cannot simply do this:



Both amps will have a speaker load on it at all times
Only one amp will see input at a time - is that a problem?
Only one amp is actually driving the speakers at a time.

Would this work without damaging the amp?

[SteveD]

The output transformer secondary winding of the 'inactive' amp will still be connected across the load and will take the signal across the load, (the speakers), and step it up right back into it's primary, working in reverse to the usual. Load mismatch, phasing issues, resonances and instability not to mention component damage. :(

This is not a good idea:!:

[kissfanps]

See I knew it wasnt good