A Couple Amp Setup Questions

jeffwyeh · #1 10-17-2011, 02:41 PM

Hey all,

I'm pretty new to the bass world, and after playing for about 8 months on-and-off on borrowed equipment, I finally bought a bass.

I've been practicing with headphones and a Pandora Mini for the past month or so, but happened to pick up a broken Peavey TKO 65 for free. After pulling it apart and soldering some stuff together, it is (seemingly) perfectly functional, with a few things I wanted to ask.

First, when I turn it off, there's a popping noise that comes from the speaker. It's not too loud, but I just wanted to make sure I'm not damaging it at all. The volume of the pop doesn't change if I turn up or down the pre/post gain. I've noticed the DDT Compression LED also lights up when the pop happens, and fades away.

Second, I was wondering how I would connect the Pandora Mini to the amp, or if that was possible at all. I'm guessing that I'd plug the bass into the Pandora, the Pandora 1/4" output to the amp low gain input, and ignore the power amp in and pre amp out patch connections on the amp. Is this right, or am I completely off base with this?

Thanks!

will33 · #2 10-17-2011, 02:49 PM

The pop on power up/down is normal on some amps, others have circuitry that mutes it.

A guitar friend of mine used to use the pandora into the front of an amp adjusting gains accordingly and it worked fine. I don't know if they have the juice to plug it in the poweramp in. If you do, the controls except master volume on the amp are bypassed and the pandora would become your sole preamp/tone shaper. Could try it in the effects loop if it has one or just go in the front, whichever sounds best and isn't crazy high on the gains.

jeffwyeh · #3 10-17-2011, 02:58 PM

Thanks. I'll give that a shot, but I'm a tick confused, so just to clarify, if I wanted to use the Pandora with the pre-amp/power amp connection, it would be:

Bass -> Amp Input
Amp preamp out -> Pandora input
Pandora output -> Amp poweramp in

Or would it be:

Bass -> Pandora input
Pandora output -> Amp poweramp in

The second option doesn't make sense to me because nothing's going into the amp's input. If I understand correctly, if I want to go with the bass plugged into the Pandora, the Pandora output should go into the amp input?

And finally, one last question (for now): as a ballpark figure, at 65W, would this amp be enough to play for a 100 person crowd in a room that can seat about 225 people? If asking for a ballpark based on wattage alone is ridiculous, please just ignore that/let me know that I can't know. :P

will33 · #4 10-17-2011, 03:12 PM

The second way.

The preamp out jack on the amp is to take the amps built in pre and send it's signal to a different poweramp other than the one built in......a "slave amp".

The amps power amp in jack is for connecting a different, external preamp other than the built in one to the amps built in poweramp.

I don't know what you fixed to get it going as far as the speaker pop goes but if it's a quietish pop that isn't affected by the controls it may be normal. Most older SWR amps always popped like that.

Can't link you straight to the pdf from the phone but go here
Peavey.com and click on TKO 65, that should be the owners manual for your amp.

jeffwyeh · #5 10-17-2011, 03:31 PM

Thanks again! I was reading through the manual earlier, and couldn't for my life understand what it was talking about referring to the pre/power amp in/outs. Setting it up this way seems to work fairly well for me.

As far as fixing it goes, it really was just one of the capacitors on the power circuit that was loose preventing the positive power rail from reaching the correct voltage.

MNAirHead · #6 10-17-2011, 03:35 PM

pandora works great... I'd just simplify and run it inline... bass-pandora-amp

Your TKO popping is the capacitors (from what my dad used to say).... its common on some TNT TKO Basic etc... nothing wrong.. not hurting anything.

nicoli · #7 10-17-2011, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffwyeh

And finally, one last question (for now): as a ballpark figure, at 65W, would this amp be enough to play for a 100 person crowd in a room that can seat about 225 people? If asking for a ballpark based on wattage alone is ridiculous, please just ignore that/let me know that I can't know. :P

Doubtful. I got stuck using a 65 watt combo for most of the summer due to budget and van size contraints. There were many nights with it dimed that I couldn't hear myself on stage let alone hope for it to project into the audience.