Advice please- effects loop, valve amp, Sansamp...

[jonmohajer1]

Hey guys,
I was hoping someone here could help me by letting me know whether this is a sensible idea or not.
I have a Trace Elliott Bonneville 100W guitar head. It's super heavy and probably the loudest guitar amp I've ever used. I mainly play bass these days though, and instead of buying a new bass amp I was wondering if it would be "ok" to go into the guitar amp through a SansAmp (preamp) straight into the effects loop, then obviously into a nice bass cab. So effectively skipping the amps own preamp and using the amp like a power amp. The sansamp has output level options for "instrument" or "line"- I'm guessing I want to use "line" as this is after the amp's own preamp- is this correct.
Am I likely to run into many problems with this? Does the amp "care" that there's a signal coming in at the effects return with nothing being "sent"?
[attachment=92660:tracehead.jpeg][attachment=92661:sansamp-bass-driver-di.jpg]

[Monckyman]

Hey.
Your amp cares not.
I have used my VHA in this way and it works fine, completely bypassing the amps own pre-amp.
Your amp uses valves and mine doesn`t but I can`t see why that should matter.
The sansamp would also be fine going through the amps input stage too.
Your choice.

[eddiehoffmann]

I don't see a problem. My advice would be to try to set the sansamp fairly clean and use the amps natural saturation as a starting point.