Preamp - powered or unpowered speakers?

Greg Milton · Post by **Greg Milton** » 15 Dec 2020 1:25 am

Hello forumites,

I've recently taken the plunge and moved from a combo amp to a Milkman 'the Amp 100' and plugging in to my duo partner's PA (I play in beer gardens and wineries that need you to project over the closest tables to be heard by those at the back). I play mando as well and have got myself a K&K pure xlr preamp to handle that side of things but wanted to ask about getting a speaker cabinet as/or monitor to support both, alongside plugging into the PA mixer. I'm a total newbie on this sort of stuff and have started learning all about different impedance matching between steel and mando and other concepts I vaguely understand.

The Milkman preamp is great with unpowered speakers - I've been plugging it in directly to my Fender Super Twin speakers (as a monitor, but HEAVY!) and it sounds amazing! I understand that the K&K preamp needs to see powered speakers (and I'm still not 100% positive on this), and so to my question - if you have one preamp that wants to see powered speakers and one that doesn't is there any harm in getting a monitor/fold back that is powered to cover both bases?

Sorry if this question is confusing because it's already confusing to me and makes my head hurt!

Any guidance would be greatly, greatly appreciated!

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 15 Dec 2020 4:19 am

That Milkman appears to be a full amplifier, not a preamp, although it may have a preamp output [edit: I see it has a "direct Out" XLR, which I assume is what you are using to connect to the PA]. A preamp doesn't create the power necessary to drive a speaker. It is necessary to run a preamp into a power amp, and the power amp powers the the speaker, or run it into a powered speaker, which is just a speaker cabinet with a power amp built into it.

Greg Milton · Post by **Greg Milton** » 16 Dec 2020 12:34 pm

Thanks, Richard. I forgot that the Milkman is an amp rather than a preamp. That means that a powered speaker as a monitor should be fine then as it will cover the mando preamp and won't degrade the sound of the Milkman amp

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 16 Dec 2020 5:48 pm

That would work.