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Using a powered PA mixer as a bass head


bonzodog
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After a little bit of advice please.

I use a Hartke HA3000 into a 410 TP and 115 cab. I know ideally I could do with a bigger amp for those cabs but until a decent SH comes up I am happy with the HA3000 and I like the sound I get from the 2 cabs.

I get a bit obsessed with having backups for everything and although I know I could use a DI box if my amp was to fail at a gig I would prefer to have a spare amp but cash is limited at the moment.

I also own a Yamaha Stagepas 600i system from my pub singing days and wondered about using the powered mixer with my Hartke cabs.
The problem is Yamaha do not say how many Ohms the mixer puts out (or what the stagepas speakers are). I assume the reason they do this is because they don't want people using other speakers with their amps.

The amp is a class D amp and claims to kick out 300W per side as it is a stereo amp which is what is confusing me.
My intention would be to connect the bass into one of the channels and then connect the 410 to one output and the 115 to the other output of the amp, and as the cabs are 8 Ohm cabs, i assume it would not matter if the stagepas amp was 4 or 8 Ohm per side.
I don't want to connect it up and damage either component so just wondered if anyone knew if this was a safe set up.
And like I say it would only be in case my HA3000 failed

Thanks in advance.

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I suspect that would be fine.

Usually PA gear is fine for amplifying bass guitar, although PA cabs are often a little light on bass frequencies (obviously not including subs here !), and the speakers often do not handle high volume low frequencies as easily.

I'd be amazed if your Yamaha mixer needed a minimum ohmage each side of more than 8, so I'm sure you'll be fine there.

Should be a useable backup for sure. Whether you like the tone will be a personal thing.

I use PA gear a lot as my main source of bass amplification

Edited by hamfist
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Channel 4 has a high (input) impedance switch so that would be the one to plug your bass into - especially if it's passive.

According to this:

http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/global/en/products/pasystems/stagepas_400i600i/specifications.jsp

it's good for 4 ohm minimum speaker load per side

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Yup, no problems, the Yamaha speakers in a Stagepas 300 are 4ohms and I suspect yours are the same. This means the power is slightly less into 8 but should be plenty. If you use fx then you have the option of using the mixer to blend them and even use different tone settings on the mixer for clean and fx

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