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1 Guitar, into 1 box out to 4 amps, signal splitter?

PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 9:24 am
by drewallsbrook
Hey Tim/anyone,

I finished my two N72's and they sounded awesome, N72's on kick and snare with my T15's on the overheads, very nice, can't wait to make more!!!

I frequently want run one e. guitar through three amps for that big sound. i don't want to have to come out of the board and re-amp.

can i just make a box with 4 TS female connections and wire them all together? just like a DI box has a "input" and "thru" can i make make something with 1 input and 4 "thru" jacks fairly simply?

do i need to worry about the impedance changing or something?.....

Thanks,

Drew

PostPosted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 11:15 am
by atiller
Radial do a distribution box for this very task. JD7 or something I believe. Check their website.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:05 pm
by drewallsbrook
yeah but it costs $1000.....

any suggestions or insights please?

PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:28 pm
by tpryan
I'd try the jacks in parallel first. A decent amp will have a very high input impedance, even four in parallel should be over 100K. If you lose a lot of high end, that's when to think about a fancier solution.

PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:56 pm
by drewallsbrook
can i use my DMM to check the impedance? if so how?

thanks!

PostPosted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:07 pm
by drewallsbrook
someone was looking for something similar and i saw this response:

First you always want the source to be a lower impedance than the input, otherwise it will load down the source. A mic output is normally a 150 ohms into a 1.5K input.
And depending on which mic your using such as a SM57 which is easily loaded even by the typical 1.5K input.
The reamp box I build is simply a transformer with a 4 to 1 step down, +4 in gives you -10 out, it also isolates the signals completely, no hum ,buzz or ground loops...
Not completely sure how your going to be using it but hope this helps.
Also when you say high into low, are you referring to a high impedance into a low imp. or a high level into a low level?
WWW.jmkaudio.com

thoughts?

PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:01 pm
by tpryan
Output impedance of passive pickups varies greatly, but 5K is probably a reasonable average. Active pickups will have a much lower output impedance. A typical tube amp will have an input impedance of 1M or higher, 200 times greater than a 5K source impedance. Four 1M loads in parallel will still be 250K, 50 times the source impedance. Generally, you'll start seeing loading effects when the load drops to less than 10 times the source impedance. Total cable capacitance might affect tone as much or more than the additional amp loads, so use good cables and keep them as short as possible.