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What are the differences between Preamp and Poweramp?
In the world of guitar amps, you’re likely to have heard of the terms preamp and power amp. What are the differences between a preamp and a power amp when you’re just starting out playing the guitar? You may not know. It may be just an amp for you, but it’s not what you think. Now let’s examine the differences between preamp and power-amp.
Difference Between Preamp and Poweramp (Simple)
Most of the time, people who buy a guitar amp may not know that they are actually buying a “combo amp” that consists of three components. The amp you buy from any music store is actually a complicated product consisting of 3 circuits.
The guitar amp consists of 3 basic parts;
When you buy an amplifier that consists of a slightly heavy cabinet with a speaker in front of it and some keys according to its features, you should know that the 3 basic elements inside have different functions.
Differences Between Preamp and Poweramp
The preamp is responsible for amplifying your guitar’s weak output. Settings such as sound, effect, EQ made in this area are not loud enough to be heard from the speaker. A small sound signal is created by adjusting the volume of the sound on the preamp, for example, what the gain value will be, or the value of special effects such as reverb. This sound signal is created by the pickups of your guitar. It is the signal created and sent to the amp. The changes we mentioned here are applied and sent to the second amp stage.
Poweramp, on the other hand, increases the volume of this signal, processes it with the required quality and sends it to the speakers. The amplified audio signal to the speakers is heard here.
Many guitar newbies adjust the sound value through the volume potentiometer. Well, have you ever noticed that there is also another potentiometer that says master on it? In fact, the volume adjustment is not the volume of the amp, but the first signal level of the sound in the preamp stage, which sends a stronger signal to the power amp section.
Multi-Channel Amplifiers
When your amplifier has two or three channels, the control of each channel is adjusted before it reaches your power amplifier. As I mentioned above, the area where you set the bass treble volume is the preamp floor of the amp.
In this type of guitar amp, you can adjust the tonal variability for each channel and adjust the volume via the power stage.
Power Amplifiers
As we mentioned at the beginning, there is a power stage in the electric guitar amps we use at home or in our studio. At this point, the sound signal arranged in the preamp floor is transmitted to a speaker by making settings such as the bass treble effect. There are jack inputs so that you can adjust the variability on the computer before the signal goes to the floor. At these points, the values you give via the computer are arranged and sent to the power stage.
Power amps have 3 basic settings. These;
If there are Presence and Reverb effects on guitar amps, these features are applied at the power amp level. Since these settings are applied after the preamp level, the same effect is applied to all channels whether you have a single channel or 3-channel amp. Some guitar amp manufacturers can produce amplifiers that perform these features on the preamp level.
After these settings are applied, it is transmitted to the speakers together with the sound level, and the amp power is heard at the same wattage.
Put simply, the preamp handles the fine-tuning of your solid amp, while the power amp handles the heavy loads of your amp.
So what should we do if we want to use the preamp stage, power amp stage and speaker cabinet of your amp separately, not a combo amp as professional guitarists do?
Head Preamp
As we mentioned above, head amplifiers take on settings such as volume, gain, EQ. This type of head amplifier can be either shelf type or produced in the cabinet. Head preamps do not work with high volume as they are responsible for regulating the audio signal with the settings on them. They can only regulate. and they need power amps.
Head Amp
Head amps seem to have a simpler structure in appearance. You can only see the volume and on-off keys on the preamp, as it is their main task to increase the signal from the preamp as the volume level.
Speaker Cabinets
After being arranged in the preamp and power amplifier, the speakers and sounds begin to be heard perfectly. You should make sure that you choose the speaker cabinet that is suitable for the output power of your power amplifier.
The main reasons why professional guitarists use these 3 basic factors separately is that they want to use products of different brands in order to get different tones or that these amps, which are produced individually, are of higher quality.
You can share your comments about preamp, power amp and speakers with us.
