I've been playing through a hh L50 as a practice amp recently but keeping the volume down for fear I might damage the speaker. Should I be afraid of turning it up?
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How bad is playing a bass through a guitar amp?
- Thread starter jackflannery3
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If it’s an open back cabinet you could easily damage the speaker. Listen carefully for signs of distress from the amp.
Yes, be afraid, be very afraid.
What if it's a Quilter MicroPro 12HD (closed back cabinet with a 300W Celestion BN12-300S bass driver in it)?
Asking for a friend.
It's not traditional to play bass through a guitar amp. But then again, Jack Bruce didn't follow the traditions and played bass through a Marshall Guitar stack. And got a signature sound with it.
With that said, if it's a practice amp, no harm no foul. As long as you don't crank it up all the time.
With that said, if it's a practice amp, no harm no foul. As long as you don't crank it up all the time.
Depends on the wattage of the amp and how much abuse the speakers will take. I used to gig with an 85 watt blackface Fender Twin loaded with a pair of JBL E120s. Sometimes I used Ric-O-Sound (bridge pickup only), sometimes biamped (HPF at 200hz), sometimes full range both pickups. The E120s are 150 watts drivers. They don't have a lot of excursion but they do have a pretty stiff suspension. They could take pretty much the full clean power of the Twin without bottoming out as long as I kept the bass control below about 4.
Probably not a good idea to expose a little speaker in a practice amp to this sort of abuse. The E120 was a premium high-power speaker...totally different animal.
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The problem is, they just aren’t designed for bass. Everything from the enclosure, the preamp frequencies, the speaker frequency range, to the baked in false bravado, is designed for electric guitar.
More to the point, you won’t hear much fundamental on your lowest notes, you could damage the speaker at high volumes, and you’ll be accused of being cheap or homeless for your janky rig.
More to the point, you won’t hear much fundamental on your lowest notes, you could damage the speaker at high volumes, and you’ll be accused of being cheap or homeless for your janky rig.
Lots of helpful advice. Thanks guys, I'll keep it down just in case. It's a 50W combo by the way
I play bass through guitar amps. What you can get away with depends on the speaker In your amp. Usually, I connect a speaker cabinet that can handle the low end. Some guitar amps do not have enough reserve in their power supply to cleanly reproduce the low end. It depends on the amp and speaker and the amount of clean sound that you want.
Pros that use guitar cabs for bass have techs on hand to recone and repair if necessary. I wouldn’t go by that as a standard.
One issue with a guitar speaker is the size of the voice coil. A 2” coil, for example, found in a bass speaker can better dissipate the heat. Overheating can damage a speaker over time. So even if you are careful to ensure that the speaker is not bottoming out by over excursion, you could still be damaging it.
One solution is to buy or build a small sized bass speaker enclosure. Changing you speaker will also help.
Pros that use guitar cabs for bass have techs on hand to recone and repair if necessary. I wouldn’t go by that as a standard.
One issue with a guitar speaker is the size of the voice coil. A 2” coil, for example, found in a bass speaker can better dissipate the heat. Overheating can damage a speaker over time. So even if you are careful to ensure that the speaker is not bottoming out by over excursion, you could still be damaging it.
One solution is to buy or build a small sized bass speaker enclosure. Changing you speaker will also help.
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I even play the bass through PC speakers, so yeah. It should not be a problem at all if you don't overdo it with the lows.
You can, but its very risky. Sure, you can practice restraint and avoid the obvious limits, if you listen, and know what the signs of limitation are. But, in a band situation, you'll either miss these, or fall to temptation when you and your mates cant hear yourself, and you damage a speaker(s).
Several of the early Fender bass combos had open backs. But, that was 100 years ago, wattage has increased 1000%, and Fender has learned not to produce them any longer... for a reason. Use a bass cab with the same head and you are safe.
Probably not a good idea to play bass into a guitar speaker.
This will just not work well except in the most desperate situations. You need a real bass amp because it will control to a satisfactory extent the speaker excursion.
madbass6
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there's a reason why bass amps are around..
