Slave Amp or Power Amp ???

[two fingers]

If you don't have speakers that can make use of the extra power it will make little, if any, difference. OTOH adding a second identical speaker with your existing amp will give an additional 6dB output, the equivalent of four times the power you now have.

This was my first thought. Add speakers instead of watts. Unless you have some serious speakers in your existing rig you won't going much even of your double the wattage gong to them. You can pick up used Carvin, Peavey or HARTKE cabs cheaper than most power amps. Or just buy a matching cab to whatever you already have.

Ampeg SVT rigs were originally designed to power two 8-10 cabs..... with only 300W. Many did the same thing with a V4.... at only 100W.

Marshall stacks usually use a 50W head.

Watts mean squat. More speaker surface area moves a lot more air morr efficiently than throwing more watts at less speaker area.

 

[two fingers]

I must have misunderstood the Master/Slave amping concept. I knew one purpose was for running a lot of cabs with the same amp tone but I also thought it would allow you to have more watts going into a single cab if desired?

Well, you can do that. You just can't use the power section of your bass head too. You can line out of your head into the power amp and then to your speaker cab (assuming your head can run with no speaker load on it).

But you can't just add your power amp and your head together. That would mean sending the powered signal from your head into a power amp.

There would be smoke. Don't do that.

 

[MattStonewall]

I understand. I did watch a video though where a fella had his Marshall head cranked; one speaker out had the hot plate set for the load; the other speaker out was sent to a box that converted the signal to line level and then it went into his Fender combo so he could have the cranked Marshall tone at a lower volume.

 

[moody]

Alright, so far with the horn cut completely I'm getting amazing tones even with all my dirt boxes. Thanks for all the advice guys.

Wrong thread?