Distibution Amps

[Scott W]

I recently talked with an fellow who I had bought a power amp from and asked him about spliting pre outs.He told me I could use a distribution amp to boost the output of the pre,something about keeping the signal at 1 volt or amp,something like that.Can anyone shed some more light on this for me?I'd be interested in cost and could a unit like this be used to split(and boost) the signal from a CD,tuner,tape deck etc.as well

[mlsstl]

It would probably be easier to ask what you're trying to accomplish. Most preamp outputs can use a simple "Y" cable to drive the inputs of two power amps. The input impedance of power amps is typically 10,000 to 50,000 ohms while the output impedance of a preamp will be very low by comparison (say, under 1,000 ohms.) Of course, this is not universally true so you'd want to look at the technical specs for the specific equipment you have.

So, if you are just trying to drive two power amps with one preamp, the Y cables may be all you need. (One issue you might need to look at is the difference in gain sensitivities between the two power amps, but that will depend on how closely you need the volume to match between the amps.)

Or, if you are trying to run a long distance between the preamp and power amp, you'll have issues other than just gain. Noise pickup could be a problem and you'd probably be better off looking at balanced connections like they use in professional studio and sound setups.

As you can see, the answer to your question is going to heavily depend on exactly what you're trying to accomplish. More info will give you a better answer.

[Scott W]

Thanks for your reply,I had started another thread earlier about splitting pre outs and got quite a few replies on that as well as a little better understanding,I was just curious about these since that guy had mentioned that I could use one.I didn't have time to ask him a lot of questions so I thought I'd ask them here.I'm here to learn as much as I can understand.I'm hardly past the point of understanding speaker impedance,THD etc.so I'll be asking lots of what might sound like silly questions of the more knowledgable people around this forum.Thanks