Low wattage tube head as a preamp?

[jock]

I was just thinking... Would a, say, 30W alltube head into something as a Marshall powerbreak be a good preamp into a common bass rig with poweramp?
Is it a stupid idea?

 

[JMX]

It should work, but if it's worth the effort, I don't know.

 

[Jim Dombrowski]

You'd have to figure out the output voltage and output impedance created by the amp/powerbrake combination to see if it would be compatible with the input of the power amp. The tube head by itself, regardless of wattage, will be too much signal going into a power amp. Whether or not the powerbrake will rectify this properly, I can't say. It certainly would not be worth blowing a power amp to find out.

Why not just look for an inexpensive tube preamp?

 

[BillyB_from_LZ]

For the price of a 30 Watt tube head and a Marshall Power Brake, you could probably buy an SWR IOD (at least a used one) and have all that you're looking for in a single rack space....

 

[ModulusFan]

Unless your amp has a line level out, I'd say no.

Pick up a used sansamp.