Will this blow my amp?

[Bald Eagle]

I've got an Eden EC 8 20 watt combo which is very portable but barely loud enough for our quiet band practice. I tried a Yamaha Sessioncake to boost the signal from my bass and it works well, making the combo much louder at low volumes. Am I likely to damage the combo by overloading around max volume, or is it more likely the amp will distort or the speaker "fart out" before I ruin it? Thanks all BCers for any opinions or experience.

[agedhorse]

No way to accurately predict the outcome. 

Edited July 24 by agedhorse

[Downunderwonder]

50 minutes ago, agedhorse said:

No way to accurately predict the outcome. 

 

57 minutes ago, Bald Eagle said:

making the combo much louder at low volumes.

Yep.

 

If anything it might get less capable."Louder at low vol" could be like the "loudness" button on your parents' old stereo. Boosting the low end to account for lack of hearing sensitivity to lows at low volume would cause a problem for the combo at higher volume.

 

What you need is a bigger amp.

[Dan Dare]

20w and an 8" speaker will struggle to be heard over anything other than an unamplified solo acoustic guitar and voice. The laws of physics and all that, Jim. You definitely need a bigger amp.

[neepheid]

[Bald Eagle]

Thanks BC'ers for considering it and of course a bigger amp is the obvious answer. I do have a bigger amp, but the Eden is small and light and copes surprisingly well at our practice volume - the others say they can hear it! Being secondhand of course it was cheap as well so perhaps it's a clear example of the "any 2 from 3" rule, even with boosted input. I'm looking forward to trying it though. Thanks to everyone.

[Downunderwonder]

I never heard of any combo amp that couldn't get max volume just by turning the knobs.

 

I suppose there could be a HPF ( high pass filter ) in the jam gizmo that is more effective than than the amp's own one. Is it letting you twist the knobs more?

[Ed_S]

I used to do this with my very first amp - a Park B25 mkII - so I could jam with a couple of guitarists after school in the music rooms. I used a Boss GEB-7 with the EQ left flat and the Level control pushed up, but it sounds like near enough the same idea. From memory I'd say my first bass was set up pretty well (late 90s Yamaha, straight out of the box and un-messed-with) and the pickups didn't need to be any higher; it was just on the polite end of passive and there was only so much output level available, so pushing the preamp with a pedal was a reasonable fix and never hurt anything as far as I'm aware.

[Bald Eagle]

On 25/07/2024 at 23:48, Downunderwonder said:

I never heard of any combo amp that couldn't get max volume just by turning the knobs.

 

I suppose there could be a HPF ( high pass filter ) in the jam gizmo that is more effective than than the amp's own one. Is it letting you twist the knobs more?

Thanks D..wonder. The amp only goes up to 10 (!) but I realise I'm really asking whether the maximum noise available from the amp will be the same, whichever bass/input signal is used. It won't cost me much to find out.

 

On 26/07/2024 at 08:28, Ed_S said:

I used to do this with my very first amp - a Park B25 mkII - so I could jam with a couple of guitarists after school in the music rooms. I used a Boss GEB-7 with the EQ left flat and the Level control pushed up, but it sounds like near enough the same idea. From memory I'd say my first bass was set up pretty well (late 90s Yamaha, straight out of the box and un-messed-with) and the pickups didn't need to be any higher; it was just on the polite end of passive and there was only so much output level available, so pushing the preamp with a pedal was a reasonable fix and never hurt anything as far as I'm aware.

Thanks Ed. My bass is a passive Mustang and I expect some basses have a higher output so it's a similar situation, and it'll be reight because I'm in Sheffield!

PS My very first amp was a little Park, till someone jemmied our back window.

cheers both, Mark