Hooking up a Sarno Classic thru the front of a Peavey 112

[Darrell Grigsby]

I've had this Sarno Classic preamp for a couple of
years. I've had problems getting, what I consider
a better sound.
I got it out of the closet, a couple of days ago and hooked it up.
Not thinking, I just plugged it in the front of the
Peavey 112.
I was surprised at the clear sound and control of
the sound. I'm happy.
My question: will this hurt the amp, by running thru
two preamps?

Thanks
Darrell

[Brad Sarno]

Darrell,

it won't hurt things to do that. If you hear a lot of distortion, then you know that the output of the SMS Classic is TOO hot for the preamp input on the Peavey. If you have the output knob on the back of the SMS Classic turned down safely, maybe down around 9 o'clock or even lower, then the Peavey's preamp should be fine with that level of signal.

Generally I don't like to go thru multiple preamps because of all the added circuitry and noise, but if it sounds good to you, that's what matters most. I wouldn't worry about harming anything.


Brad

[David Nugent]

Not certain, but believe there is an input jack in the rear of the amp that will allow you to bypass the 112's preamp stage and just utilize the power amp and speaker .

[Brad Sarno]

Agreed, it's generally advised to use the rear power-amp-in jack or the far right front jack. But Darrell seems to have found that he likes the tone better when going thru both preamps. Since that's the case, I just wanted to advise him to have the gain structure set to give max headroom.

B

[Brett Lanier]

I've been fooling around with plugging my FYD octal reverb pre into the front end of different amps (bandmaster and a session 400). It's amazing how much clean volume I can get with the bandmaster this way. I use a 12at7 in the first position to balance the gain a little better. But on the contrary, I like 6SL7's in the preamp. Despite the higher gain, they sound brighter and more present than the lower gain 6SN7's to me.