Extending my bass amp

Mr. CooL ICE

Ive got a Laney 120W combo amp and it is fairly loud when it wants to be, especially for practise, but I'm wary of using it live, as the single speaker just doesn't cut it live and I'm afraid of putting it too loud and blowing a fuse.

I was thinking about adding a cabinet onto it, maybe a 2x10" cabinet or something along those lines. I'm not 100% sure about it since it's not ideal (i would buy a new rig but I'm a damn student and trying to keep it as cheap as possible). The back of my Laney has the type of connection where the speaker uses a cable connection to the actual amplifier, so i was wondering if putting a cable splitter such as the one below into the back of the amp, connecting the speaker to one and the external cabinet into the other. Would all that work?


Possible cable splitter(link may not work)
Better link

Doctor J

Unless your amp has a dedicated output for an external cab I'd say you've more chance of blowing it by adding the cab. At a guess, your combo amp is correctly rated for ohms (resistance) between speaker and power amp and isn't designed to be flexiable. Introducing a extra cabinet will change the ohm rating (ie - how much power is being drawn by the amp) and probably blow the **** out of your power amp... which is bad. Your amp will only ever put out 120 watts, and I can't see a way for you to safely keep the ohmage the same by adding an extra speaker. If you increase the ohm rating (wire speakers in series) you will get less output, despite the extra speaker, which is counterproductive. If you lower the ohmage (wire speakers in parallel), you probably kill the amp, though you may be louder for a brief moment.

Although you're trying to stick to a budget the wisest move might be to save whatever money you were going to spend on a 2x10 and whatever you can get for your amp and get a higher output amp altogether.

Mr. CooL ICE

So, is it not extremely pointless to sell a 120W amp and not be able to get more than 50/60W out of it? If it is, i was screwed on this thing when i bought it last year.

Damn my innocence.

daram

Why again do you need more than a 120w amp?

Doctor J

LordChessington wrote:

So, is it not extremely pointless to sell a 120W amp and not be able to get more than 50/60W out of it?

What do you mean? How do you know you are only getting 50/60 watts out of it?

ferdi

jesus man, just whack it up to 11 and let her rip!

masto1983

ferdi wrote:

jesus man, just whack it up to 11 and let her rip!

Exactly, although you shouldnt need to with a 120w amp! My 100w Trace Elliot drowns out the drummer at less than half the volume. Dont think ive ever had her at full volume though, kindof afraid of what'll happen, our house doesnt seem that sturdy!

daram

yeah, our bassist has a 65w trace combo and he's never needed more. Besides, usually when playing live, you'll be di-d into the p.a. so it doesnt matter anyway. bass amp is only used as a monitor if there arent any in house.