Patchbay Question

[martyhk0]

Ok, so when you connect a guitar amp to a speaker cab you have to be sure you have the right ohms, or resistance, or bad things will happen.

I have a lot of heads and cabs that I like to mix and match.

Can I use a patchbay for convenience sake to go from head to cab, or will just going through the patch bay cause possible problems by changing/lowering the resistance of the cab/speaker?

 

[suprstar]

I dont think it's a matter or resistance or impedance or anything. Yeah, you could blow an amp with a lo z cab or whatever, but as far as the patch ay is concerned, the circuit is either open or closed, on or off.. It's not going to change the issue of amp/cab impedance matcing.. If you hook a cab up to an amp, you could theoretically do it thru a patch bay, BUT - The real question is, can you patch bay pass 100 watts, or are they designed for line level strength signals. You might melt the patchbay by pushing waaay to much power thru it.

 

[martyhk0]

thats a very good point. I did not even think of that

 

[suprstar]

thats a very good point. I did not even think of that

google 'speaker level patchbay', you'll get a few results. Seems they make some, but the one I saw was crazy expensive..... If you're handy you could buy some connectors and some thick wire and build yourself a patchbay that'd take that kind of power relatively cheap. Your common trs patchbays are not rated for that kind of power.