the skipper
Professional Curmudgeon
ad a pair of interconnects from them to he amps.
Best way to wire one preamp to two power amps?
- Thread starter z-adamson
- Start date
petehall347
the brandy coffee man
is there a conclusion yet as to say what is the best way ?
petehall347
the brandy coffee man
the red and white has me confused .
the skipper
Professional Curmudgeon
the two power amps better be real close to that preamp.
Thanks.
Bill Ferris
Lunatic Member
And any compatible combined amplifiers input impedances when strapped or there could be undesirable interactions between the two and the preamps output impedance issues..
Won`t hurt anything if loading mismatched, just maybe not sound as good as it could without a buildout inserted series resistor buffering..
Just a thought/consideration noise from me, Skipper !!
Carry on folks.
the skipper
Professional Curmudgeon
amps input impedances tend to be very high. If not, powered subwoofer running in two channel systems at line level would be a problem. heck, running them at speaker level would be a problem, too.
petehall347
the brandy coffee man
yep it can make a huge difference .well it did when i had 3 car amps running together .
the skipper
Professional Curmudgeon
rather than et this guy all worked up, I would suggest he invest in the two "Y" splitters and two interconnects and see how it works before worrying. it it doesn't work, well, I'm sure you guys will have solutions, albeit pricier..
You could have an impedance mismatch when driving just one amplifier if for example, an older tube preamp is used with a very late model amplifier. If the situation was reversed whereby a very late model preamp is used with much earlier power amplifiers, as many as 16 amplifiers or more could by run from a single preamp.
If in doubt, the combined load should be calculated and compared with the output impedance recommendations of the preamp. As a general rule, two amps shouldn’t be a problem for most preamps of similar age.
If in doubt, the combined load should be calculated and compared with the output impedance recommendations of the preamp. As a general rule, two amps shouldn’t be a problem for most preamps of similar age.
z-adamson
Addicted Member
These are what I would need to connect two amps to one preamp out, correct?
The problem here is that you are going male to female. In this case you would have to connect another set of interconnects to these y cables. This is not preferable. You want the fewest amount of termination points possible. It would be best to have a male to male y cable that goes from the preamp to one amp then another single y cable from the preamp to the other amp. You eliminate 1 termination point per interconnect doing this.
z-adamson
Addicted Member
Yeah, something like that. Shorter = Better.So a pair of these?
Bought an 8 ft pair for delivery tomorrow.
In the meantime, connecting my McIntosh MC2300 and MC2105 with their regular IC's to a McIntosh C22 pre using a 1 male/2 female Y splitter(100k ohms input impedance for each amp...) Honestly can't tell of much audible difference between it and just using the normal output with one amp on it, or the multiple outs on my McIntosh C34V. All sounds fine to me. Old ears can be a blessing in disguise.
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I was doing the same when using my Mac C34V preamp, which has 3 outputs. Now that I've switched to my C22 with only one I'm splitting it's only output between my 2 amps. Impedance wise works well, and sounds great.
And the new 2M-1M cables sound great. Dare I say better then the 2F-1M connections.
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mitchalee
Active Member
I don't want to throw cold water on a very old discussion, but feel compelled to point out that most all preamps that have 2 main outs are simply Y connectors that have been moved inside the box. My Mac and my Nakamichi and my Dyna are all just jumped together inside. Surprise! Exactly the same as a Y connector. As I wrote, just moved into the box. Now, obviously it is different for the main out to see 2 loads rather than 1. But, so what? Unless you actually hear a difference or it damages the preamp, then the difference does not matter. And that can only be determined with your ears and a little common sense.
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