Vibro Champ w/ Princeton combo

[xiao phaedrus]

Hey everyone! I'm new here and have a simple question.

I have recently bought a silverface Vibro Champ. It sounds just great with my 335 going through it. Gigging it is obviously a bit difficult though.

My basic question is sort of a physics question:

If I get a couple of these little guys and stack 'em up, would this necessarily give me a cummulative volume increase? I know this seems a bit silly, but my gut feeling is that two wouldn't EXACTLY sound like twice the watts.

I recently bought a 66 Princeton and have yet to get it out of the shop for the check up and cleaning etc. Anybody used these two amps together before? I figured the nice distortion of the champ, with the cleaner beefier tone of the princeton might be really nice. Has anyone got any experience with using multiple 'practice' amps in a real live setting? I don't need to blow anyone away, and my old deville 2X12 was much too loud/clean for my needs.

[Liam]

Yes, you get double the power with double the amplifiers, but that only generally gives you a 3 dB increase in the perceived sound level, and that's only if you're far enough away to be hearing both speakers equally.

However I can thoroughly recommend using 2 amps at the same time, I never even worry if they are in phase, although you may want to check it out. It can sometimes work for you, sometimes against you.

One clean and one dirty is great. If you use pedals (I do) when you jump on an overdrive the clean amp gets a bigger volume boost, and the dirty amp just mushes out. It can sound awesome.

A Princeton and a Champ would work, but not in a big venue, as they are both open backed the bass disappears. I'd play a pub/club with those 2 as long as I didn't have a loud drummer. Should sound really good.

My favourite was a 100 watt Marshall through a 4 x 12 as the dirty amp, and a Vox AC30 as the clean amp...but you have to own a van ;-)

[Amp Kat]

You are using an A/B box and not plugging ones output to the others input right ? Th 66 Princeton is an amazing amp especially with a little reverb you can nail lots of SRV stuff.

[Liam]

You're safe to daisy chain the inputs on the Princeton as an alternative. Just plug your guitar into number 1, and run a guitar lead between the second input of the Princeton and the input to the Champ. Not looked at a Champ schematic for a while, but will probably work the other way around as well. You lose a little bit of signal (and maybe brightness) on the second amp, but it works pretty well.

But like Amp Kat says, under no circumstances run the output of one amp into the input of another.

[MWJB]

Or add a 2nd speaker jack (1/4" - I'd replace the RCA jack on the Champ with 1/4" anyway, they can loose their fit) to the champ. Wire a 2.2K resistor from the hot terminal of the speaker jack to the hot of new jack socket, wire a 470ohm resistor from the hot terminal of the new socket to ground. Your new socket is now a line level, line out and you can run this to the input (try the #2 first) of a larger amp.

If you daisy chain a 5W champ and a 20W princeton at the inputs, the Princeton will most probably just drown out the Champ, it won't adopt any of the Champ's character.

[Liam]

Champ is 6 watts, Princeton is 12 watts. It won't just "drown it out", but if it is, just knock the volume down a bit on the Princeton. That way the volumes match but you get the "headroom" difference that I mentioned.

I have used daisy chaining a lot, but it's having amps with different characteristics that makes it work for me. I have done this with Y splitters, A/B boxes, and even used preamps to keep signal levels up. Daisy chain is DEFINITELY worth trying. If you don't like it, don't use it, but try it first. (The best preamp driver for daisy chain is the WEM Copicat Custom IMO, but I am quite mad.)

Don't worry about keeping the whole lot sounding like a Champ, just see if you like it...

I've never liked running line level from the speaker/OT of one amp into the input of another, but having said you ought to try what I do, I guess you'd better try what MWJB suggests.

Liam

(FWIW I was testing a modern Fender Stage 160 DSP preamp section by running it at line level into my SF Princeton yesterday. Didn't sound great, but it was a LOT nicer than the Fender DSP power amp.)

[MWJB]

Most folks turn a Princeton up way beyond the 12W clean rating in a gig situation, even if the Princton was only twice the power of the champ it will still appear louder because it is fixed bias and undoubtedly has a higher plate voltage.

Didn't mean to suggest that daisy chaining wasn't at least worth trying, but more that the line out would give a champ like tone at higher volumes.

I, and others, have had great success with the line out from the speaker. In fact, once installed on the Champ, there's no reason not to line out straight to the PA...you would be best off having a monitor on stage though.

[Liam]

Most folks turn a Princeton up way beyond the 12W clean rating in a gig situation, even if the Princton was only twice the power of the champ it will still appear louder because it is fixed bias and undoubtedly has a higher plate voltage.

Let's just not go there. Power ratings, perceived volume vs. plate voltage, speaker efficiency, just a minefield, and I'm getting into arguments too easily nowadays. All I was saying was that if you run a clean amp and a dirty amp together, daisy chained, the fact that one amp starts to crunch just as the other starts to really saturate sounds good to my ears.

Yes, if you turn the Princeton up louder than the Champ it will be louder. If you don't, it will not, until you drive it louder with a pedal. It can sound great

Didn't mean to suggest that daisy chaining wasn't at least worth trying, but more that the line out would give a champ like tone at higher volumes.

I, and others, have had great success with the line out from the speaker. In fact, once installed on the Champ, there's no reason not to line out straight to the PA...you would be best off having a monitor on stage though.

That's fair enough, different strokes for different folks. I actually keep an SM57 in my gig bag, just in case the engineer hasn't got one, so I must be quite committed to microphones compared to many!