Okay, now I'm really thinking of doing something stupid...

[Purge]

Just did a thread on a clean combo amp...and I got to thinking.



Eventually, I'm going to look into investing in a bass rig and I'm wondering about killing two birds with one stone here. Gallien Krueger makes a cheap 210 cabinet (around 200 bucks), which would likely be part of the package I'd buy for a bass rig. I'm wondering how this would work with my Line 6 head, or if this is just the dumbest idea ever?

Thing is...I don't really need a combo amp, but I wanted something a little more portable than the stupid 4x12's I've got lying around. Hauling those things over to somebody's apartment for a "dicking around" session is more work than I'd like to put in, so something smaller to run the head through would be ideal.

Of course, I also need to look at impedance/wattage matching here, and I'm still as clueless as I've ever been on this stuff. My head is a 300 watt Flextone...says it's rated 300w at 4 ohms, 200w at 8 ohms, and 120 watts at 16 ohms. Reading up on the GK, we're looking at handling of 200w at 8 ohms, so this looks like a fit to me...I'm not missing anything here, right? (duhhhh...)

Anyway...thoughts? Too bassy with regards to tone? Too stupid? Too...anything else?

 

[rayc]

Bass cabs use big speakers to move air to achieve the low freqs.
I'm a bassist. I have 2 bass boxes: a single speaker 200watt Etone and a similar but 2 speaker home made box.
I have used the boxes for guitar too - but have to do post recording work to get a good guitar sound from them.
Check out most guitar cabs vs bass cabs. Compare the speakers sizes & types.
I really want a real guitar cab for my guitar playing (bass amps have often proven to be incredible for guitars thought visa versa is rarely the case) as I don't get the same top end freq response I'd like from the bass cabs.

 

[RejectionNinja]

You're taking 300W to just noodle around in someone's apartment?



200W into 8 Ohms from your amp into an 8 Ohm cabinet rated for 200W is ok for guitar purposes. There's a chance you could blow speakers if you keep it cranked, but that's probably more of a risk for bass players than guitar players.

A bass cabinet will probably have too much bass, and if it has a tweeter, too much high end for guitar. Many guitar cabinets emphasize the midrange, and bass cabinets tend to do the opposite. But it might work just fine. Ears are the final judge there.

But the real question is why stop at 300W? You could get a couple QSC power amps in a rack. I think you need to shoot for about 2.5 KW.

Ok seriously, just a suggestion, but have you considered using something other than a half stack? I'm not saying you totally wuss out - stay in the "loud enough to easily cause hearing damage" like 40W or 50W, but below "instantly deaf" level of 300W in a small room.

Anyway, just a thought.

 

[Purge]

You're taking 300W to just noodle around in someone's apartment?



200W into 8 Ohms from your amp into an 8 Ohm cabinet rated for 200W is ok for guitar purposes. There's a chance you could blow speakers if you keep it cranked, but that's probably more of a risk for bass players than guitar players.

A bass cabinet will probably have too much bass, and if it has a tweeter, too much high end for guitar. Many guitar cabinets emphasize the midrange, and bass cabinets tend to do the opposite. But it might work just fine. Ears are the final judge there.

But the real question is why stop at 300W? You could get a couple QSC power amps in a rack. I think you need to shoot for about 2.5 KW.

Ok seriously, just a suggestion, but have you considered using something other than a half stack? I'm not saying you totally wuss out - stay in the "loud enough to easily cause hearing damage" like 40W or 50W, but below "instantly deaf" level of 300W in a small room.

Anyway, just a thought.

Yeah, you're right...I should probably slave it with a couple Randall VMAX's...

Oddly enough, it's a pretty quiet head (relatively speaking) for 300 watts...of course, they're using the old 150 per channel trick (always a fun marketing scheme), so I guess it's not like I'm really firing a cannon any time I play a chord. (it's also solid state, so the "tube wattage ratio" applies here too) But still...you'd figure cranking up something that says 300 on it to around 3 or 4 on the volume knob should be peeling paint off the walls. In reality, that's about the right range on this amp for normal volumes where the neighbors aren't even noticing. Weird...

I'll try out that cab...there aren't any tweeters in there, and it might be interesting to see if a couple 10" bass speakers work for a guitar sound. If nothing else, like I said I'm just trying to kill 2 birds with one stone here...it's eventually going to turn into a bass rig anyway. As long as I'm not making anything blow up or fizzle due to idiotic hookups, I'm not too worried about being able to dial in a sound.

 

[RejectionNinja]

Well if it's going to turn into a bass rig, you might want to spend some time reading up on matching speakers to amps for bass rigs. The only potential problem is if you start clipping your amp before the speakers reach their limit. It is possible to overheat the speakers and start a fire, although I've never done it.

Many bass amps have an output limiter to protect the speakers against this happening.

Personally I use an amp that puts 250W into 8 Ohms with a cabinet rated for 350W at 8 Ohms, so I'm not even following my own advice.