Two amp heads, one cabinet?

[tshapiro]

If a cabinet has two parallel inputs does that mean it could handle two different amp head simultaneously? I have two jack's on my bass and thought I could process the signals separately then send to one cabinet. Maybe people do this all the time and it's a dumb question, I've never heard of it though so I thought there may be a good reason not to.

As you can see by the responses, it's a no. But, just curious what 2 amps you were looking to use and what were you hoping to achieve by doing it?

 

[Ostie]

Tell the truth. You just want to buy some new gear, right?

 

[bobyoung53]

If a cabinet has two parallel inputs does that mean it could handle two different amp head simultaneously? I have two jack's on my bass and thought I could process the signals separately then send to one cabinet. Maybe people do this all the time and it's a dumb question, I've never heard of it though so I thought there may be a good reason not to.

Boom! (Not in a good way)

 

[HolmeBass]

“No” is the 99.99% answer. No bueno!

 

[Tommy Sparks]

There’s a magic smoke inside your you want to avoid letting out as you can see from the responses.
Also; there is no such thing as a stupid question. On the other hand doing it without asking well... you know.
Keep asking!

 

[whero]

They say two heads are better than one.

I don't know who "they" are, but this proves they don't know what they are talking about.

 

[ahc]

Don't do it unless you want to learn to to sing one or both of these tunes with feeling.

 

[Nev375]

Yes, you can do it!

I'm an anonymous source on the internet with no interest in your gear and zero accountability with a bag of popcorn and a love of schadenfreude.

Go for it!

 

[Deleted member 165050]

It can be done with a current Ampeg SVT 810E.

One of the jacks on this cab is switching and breaks it into essentially two 410s. I would call it dual mono rather than stereo.


The Ampeg Heritage 810 manual is attached.

From p. 5.
View attachment 4385539
The top 1/4" jack (labeled 1) is the switching jack. If you insert a plug into jack 1, it opens a switching contact so the cab functions as two 410s. Only jack 1 connects to the top 410 (at 8 ohms) All other jacks connect to the bottom 410 (at 8 ohms).

If a plug is not inserted into jack 1, the cabs operates as an 810 (at 4 ohms).

Trace Elliot also did a dual mono cab years ago, although I think that was a guitar cab.

But that scenario is extremely rare, most cabs with two sockets have parallel wiring meaning if (either) one is used for input, the other is parallel out.

Re head switchers, I seem to recall @agedhorse recommending against using them for bass.

 

[chadds]

Keybd's mom said she was going to wire up her own 220. Her son said, "first dial 91."

 

[J-Bass RMR]

Maybe this will help.

I'm joking, this won't help, but it obtusely represents what OP is wanting to do. Don't do this. Or that.

Great analogy.
Speaker or not, the OP would essentially be connecting the 2 power amp outputs together.
(and, OP, that would be bad...)

The only way to do it is with something like this, otherwise you'll fry your heads. This is assuming you want to be able to use both amps at the same time and switch back and forth

Headbone VT - Radial Engineering

The Radial would only work for tube amps - NOT class D amps (which IS something I'd be interested in), and the max amp size is 100 watts. (even though the video on Radial's website shows a guy loading an SVT cab into his car )
IIRC @agedhorse once explained the complexity involved of creating an A/B amp selector for Class D amps.

 

[Lobster11]

Ordinarily I do not post to say something that has already been said many times by previous posters, but in this case I don't think you can hear the answer "NO!" too many times.

 

[logdrum]

No cabinet has two inputs. One is an input and the other is a parallel contact for daisy chaining.
Never connect two amplifiers to one cabinet. Severe damage to the equipment will result.
Unlike others, I will discourage trying anything elaborate until you understand simple setups.

There are cabinets with 2 inputs but mostly guitar cabinets. I had a Roland JC-120 head which needs a stereo cab and I used a Mesa Boogie 412. Both sold and in a pinch you can sue the guitar cab (which had 4 200 watt EVM12 drivers as a bass cab and I've done it when I had a Mesa D-180 and my Mesa 400.

 

[basscooker]

We been Lownered

 

[tminus10]

There's a very good reason you've never heard of it

 

[Lobster11]

But, just curious what 2 amps you were looking to use and what were you hoping to achieve by doing it?

I was wondering this too, and found an earlier thread by OP in which he said he had just bought a Ric with stereo output (one channel per pickup). So my guess is that what he really wants is a way to EQ the two channels separately before sending the signal(s) to a cabinet.

 

[S-Bigbottom]

But as specified above, if you decide to do it anyway, film it, and make sure you say "watch this!" before you destroy all your gear in one fell swoop. That way, someone else can earn from your mistake.

I was thinking for entertainment purposes only, but if some learn... bonus.

 

[sokolasty]

If a cabinet has two parallel inputs does that mean it could handle two different amp head simultaneously?

If it's a mono cab, it can't
If it stereo cabinet, i. e. two separate circuits, it can.
What cab do you have? Possibly you can modify mono cab into stereo. Some soldering, some woodworking, nothing complicated. Prerequisite: it must have at least two drivers.

I have two jack's on my bass and thought I could process the signals separately then send to one cabinet.

What's the bass?

Maybe people do this all the time and it's a dumb question, I've never heard of it though so I thought there may be a good reason not to.

There are very few dumb question, and your aren't. Not knowing something is usual for human being. Asking is good.

 

[rjmsteel]

Magic Smoke

 

[H Nighttrain]

No.

Unless...

An 8-ohm 4x10 with four 8-ohm speakers can be re-wired as two separated 4-ohm 2x10 sides in one box.

I did this to a cheap 400W-capable Carvin 410, drove it with both sides of an old Fender BXR400 (had two non-bridgable power amps). Wasn't a bad rig, cheap and loud, used it for hosting a blues jam.