Me and my housemate are hosting a New Years Eve party next week and since we don't have any "regular" audio gear to play music with, I'm considering using some of my rack pieces and guitar cabinets that I already own.
The aim is to be able play music coming from the output of my computer into my soundcraft mixer and out into some sort of amp and speakers. We want to have music playing in the lounge room and in the backyard thoughout the night.
Since we've got a limited amount of time and budget we may have to resort to using what we find can around find around the house.
Myself, I have a Mesa Fifty/Fifty power amp, Peavey Classic 50/50 power amp, a crusty homemade open back 1x12" cab with Mesa Black Shadow C-90 speaker, and a Marshall 1960a with celestions. While using this kind of high-end gear with valves n' all designed for guitar amplification seems kind of over the top for a dinky nye party, technically it should be useable and logically worth considering as I already have them in my possession.
As my 1x12" is 8-Ohm and Marshall wired for 4-Ohm mono, I would have to use BOTH poweramps to supply power to each cabinet seperately. The lounge room and backyard would only have one speaker each, which is enough for what we need it for.
Just before, I tried each power amp and cabinet with the input stage being fed from the mixer from the computer with winamp playing some songs. I was quite surprised how good the results were. I was expecting mediocre results with gear not designed for full-range music playback.
The 1x12" open back with C-90 sounded awesome with both power amps. Big, full, clear, and kind of 3D I guess. Maybe it was the tubes playing a role, but the output sounded "warm".
The Marshall 1960a yielded less impressive results. Highly directional and a bit boxy. Headroom and SPL for days though. Still very useable though. Both speaker cabs had more than enough volume and clarity needed for the application.
The Fifty/Fifty sounded slightly better with both cabs probably because of the superior bass response of 6L6s. Me and house mate agreed that gear sounded excellent for playing music.
Anyways, what I'm concerned about is if I could possibly do any to harm to the amps by using them in such a fashion over the course of about 5-6 hours. I always take care in making sure the impedance is correct in going from the amp to the speaker. However I'm not sure about the level going from the mixer. I used the L-side "monitor" out 1/4 jack from the mixer which I'm guessing is line level.
Also, I'm concerned about wearing out the tubes too quickly by doing this. We definitely won't be putting the volume level above 3 or 4. These beasts can put out massive volume with the setup I used with them. Seems kind of silly to kill the life of the tubes just by playing mp3 music through them non-stop for a night.
Finally, I'll need to get 2 very long speaker cables running from each power amp from my bedroom and run them into the lounge and backyard. I'm a bit scared someone will trip over one of them and disconnect a speaker from a poweramp while in operation. I've also noticed that my current cable I' m using seems to be just a electrical powercord with 1/4 jacks attached to each end. It's worked fine for me for years so could I just get very long extension cable and solder some jacks either end use this to connect from the amps in my room to the two other locations where the cabs are?
Sorry for the long post. Just want to know your thoughts on this and if it's way too over the top. We may just end up sourcing a cheap old-school transistor hi-fi amp and speakers from a friend or pawn shop.
The aim is to be able play music coming from the output of my computer into my soundcraft mixer and out into some sort of amp and speakers. We want to have music playing in the lounge room and in the backyard thoughout the night.
Since we've got a limited amount of time and budget we may have to resort to using what we find can around find around the house.
Myself, I have a Mesa Fifty/Fifty power amp, Peavey Classic 50/50 power amp, a crusty homemade open back 1x12" cab with Mesa Black Shadow C-90 speaker, and a Marshall 1960a with celestions. While using this kind of high-end gear with valves n' all designed for guitar amplification seems kind of over the top for a dinky nye party, technically it should be useable and logically worth considering as I already have them in my possession.
As my 1x12" is 8-Ohm and Marshall wired for 4-Ohm mono, I would have to use BOTH poweramps to supply power to each cabinet seperately. The lounge room and backyard would only have one speaker each, which is enough for what we need it for.
Just before, I tried each power amp and cabinet with the input stage being fed from the mixer from the computer with winamp playing some songs. I was quite surprised how good the results were. I was expecting mediocre results with gear not designed for full-range music playback.
The 1x12" open back with C-90 sounded awesome with both power amps. Big, full, clear, and kind of 3D I guess. Maybe it was the tubes playing a role, but the output sounded "warm".
The Marshall 1960a yielded less impressive results. Highly directional and a bit boxy. Headroom and SPL for days though. Still very useable though. Both speaker cabs had more than enough volume and clarity needed for the application.
The Fifty/Fifty sounded slightly better with both cabs probably because of the superior bass response of 6L6s. Me and house mate agreed that gear sounded excellent for playing music.
Anyways, what I'm concerned about is if I could possibly do any to harm to the amps by using them in such a fashion over the course of about 5-6 hours. I always take care in making sure the impedance is correct in going from the amp to the speaker. However I'm not sure about the level going from the mixer. I used the L-side "monitor" out 1/4 jack from the mixer which I'm guessing is line level.
Also, I'm concerned about wearing out the tubes too quickly by doing this. We definitely won't be putting the volume level above 3 or 4. These beasts can put out massive volume with the setup I used with them. Seems kind of silly to kill the life of the tubes just by playing mp3 music through them non-stop for a night.
Finally, I'll need to get 2 very long speaker cables running from each power amp from my bedroom and run them into the lounge and backyard. I'm a bit scared someone will trip over one of them and disconnect a speaker from a poweramp while in operation. I've also noticed that my current cable I' m using seems to be just a electrical powercord with 1/4 jacks attached to each end. It's worked fine for me for years so could I just get very long extension cable and solder some jacks either end use this to connect from the amps in my room to the two other locations where the cabs are?
Sorry for the long post. Just want to know your thoughts on this and if it's way too over the top. We may just end up sourcing a cheap old-school transistor hi-fi amp and speakers from a friend or pawn shop.
