can low wattage solid state amps be used to drive the AO-44 reverb amp?

[peanut]

I have some little solid state practice amps none of which exceed 15 watts,can I use these to drive the AO-44 if I wanted to?,if so what would be the maximum that the AO-44 can handle?,my AO-44 is in an M-101,I am correct in assuming that the reverb I-II settings are determined by different resistor loads at the switches?in the even I was to use the AO-44 outside of the M-101 I would either have full straight on reverb and would have to use a pot or somthing of that nature to be able to adjust the reverb strength/amount?thanks!!

[Sweet Pete]

A 2-4 watt L-Pad will give you continously variable reverb on an M101,just like an A100.I like the way the AO29 drives an AO44......wouldn't change a thing.

[Guitarbro]

You can just use a preamp to drive it, the AO-44 only needs 2-3 volts.

[BlueOliveB3]

To actually drive the spring tank? Should work okay. A preamp won't drive the tank as the driver coil is 8 ohms if it's the tank that went with the AO-44. 2-3 volts might be enough, but a preamp isn't going to swing that in to a low-impedance load. If you use the same input that the organ's power amplifier drove (driving the tank through the light-bulb limiter in the AO-44) a 15-watt amp is exactly right, since that's what it was originally fed by. Definitely use the AO-44's light-bulb limiter circuit if you go this route.

TP

[peanut]

I think this might have got a little confused,I did not mean I wanted to use a SS amp to drive just the reverb tank,I want to use a low wattage SS practice amp to drive the AO-44 just like it is being driven in the M-101,by the speaker out from the AO-29,instead of the AO-29 I want to use a SS 15-20 watt practice amp to drive the AO-44

[jdoc]

why...............why?

[ShadyJoe]

I was told a few years ago by someone who undstood electronics very well that doing something like this should be OK. The impact of the reverb amp should be minimal on the other amp. I would go ahead and try it. I consider that in an A100 I had disconnected the working reverb and this had no effect - adding the reverb amp back in had no effect. So why not give it a try. Just be sure to keep volumes low at first.

I believe an M3 is about 11 watts. I don't think an M100 is much more.

[BlueOliveB3]

The AO-29's speaker output doesn't drive the AO-44 amplifier circuit, it drives the *reverb tank* through a light-bulb limiter. The AO-44's actual amplifier circuit gets its signal from the output of the reverb tank. Yes, the lines from the AO-29's speaker output connect to two terminals on the AO-44 chassis (labeled INPUT, but it's not the input to the actual amplifier.) This is because the light-bulb limiter circuit is contained in the AO-44 chassis. That limiter circuit feeds two other chassis terminals the driver coil of the reverb tank connects to (labeled DRIVER.) A shielded RCA cable runs from the reverb tank to the RCA input jack on the AO-44 where that signal is then amplified and sent to its own speaker (via the terminals labeled SPKR.) The actual amplifier circuit in the AO-44 is *not* driven by the organ's main amplifier but by the output signal from the reverb tank. And yes, a 15W SS amp will work just fine, but it will be doing what the main amp in the organ does in its native application - driving the reverb tank through a light-bulb limiter circuit. The AO-44 (and AO-35 before it) depend on the organ's amp for reverb *drive*. The reverb amp itself performs reverb *recovery* and powers the reverb speaker. Look up the schematic and console wiring diagrams...it should become clear.

TP

[torea]

Thanks for the explanation Todd. I had a fuzzy idea of how it worked (knew about the lightbulb trick) but still hadn't quite connected the dots.

[peanut]

why...............why?

I am pondering making a 4 speaker stand alone reverb cabinet using the AO-44 so that I can use it with all my organs and not just the M-101,I'd use a tube amp but don't have any that are suited for the job,I do however have a few old gorilla practice amps