Darkglass B7K driving a power amp ?

[sifi2112]

Hi all,

As the title says, do any of you use your B7K direct into a pa power amp ? Just wondering if it has enough juice to do this and if so what power amp do you use ?

I'm thinking of a possible wet/dry setup having blend maxed & a boost pedal on parallel out, both outputs into a stereo power amp driving two cabs ... sound feasible ?

cheers

Si

[Saved]

My opinion is to stay simple.Choose one tone and play it with 2 cabs.NO 2 different cabs..

[dannybuoy]

In a word, no. The B7K is designed to operate at around unity volume rather than boosting your volume up to the level expected by your typical power amp.

This is mainly due to the unusual (and infuriating if you ask me) way the blend control works. Your dry signal cannot be boosted whatsoever - the volume knob only affects the overdrive level, and the blend knob fades between that and the constant level dry signal.

The B7K Ultra is different though - it has a master volume control, which can be used to boost the overall signal; hopefully loud enough for most power amps but I can't confirm. You can always PM Doug, he's a user here and good guy who's always happy to help.

One more thing - the parallel out is not buffered or boosted and is simply hard wired directly to the input. This is effectively no different to using a jack splitter cable/adapter, so you would struggle to use that socket to run a second clean power amp even with the Ultra version.

Edited March 16, 2017 by dannybuoy

[sifi2112]

Thanks Danny. ..
I feared as much. It was just an idea. I don't have either at the moment so I can't try out but I remember using a B7K before going straight into my amp (not return back) & noticed the level knob was around noon, any higher then clean (pedal off) volume was lower so I thought what if I blend 100% wet, crank level that might drive a power amp ? For clean I'd have to run parallel out through cranked compressor I have (+20dB) both into A/B looper pedal then switch between the two, like I said it was just an idea .. I'll probably just buy the M900 head & save me the hassle lol. . & maybe the Alpha/Omega

[dannybuoy]

Gotcha - that might just work, the only problem being if you crank the B7K volume then there won't be much clean signal in the output in terms of ratio. That's fine if the sound you want from the pedal is pretty wet and set to fat to give plenty of low end; however another way to use the pedal is to set it to thin mode so the distortion is just mainly in the mids, then blend just a touch of that with the clean tone. If you happened to enjoy that tone you might struggle to get enough overall output volume.

[noise_art]

IMO, there's no objection if you drive power amp using DI output.
I tried to use MXR M80 onto crown poweramp->AshdownCab, because once I had my amp repaired.
It deppends, but It works.

Anyways, if you want to use this configuration, it's better to drive powersoft amp using DI (Balanced) output, cause it's lightweight

[Sibob]

From Darkglass' website/FAQ:

[i][b][size=4]I HAVE A B7K, A POWER AMP AND A CABINET. CAN I USE THE B7K AS A PREAMP?[/size][/b]

[size=4]Yes! The output volume will depend of the sensitivity of the power amp but we have tried the B7K on different powers and it work very well. You can also try the Vintage deluxe, the B7K ultra and the Vintage Deluxe Ultra.[/size][/i]

Si

[sifi2112]

Cheers all .. yeah Si I did read that on Darkglass site but if you turn B7K off for 'clean' it most likely won't have enough juice .. I think I'm gonna skip this idea & just get their M900 head, thanks for everyone's input.

Si