A meta question spawned from amp garage and honestly, I thought, why not ask the man himself?
Let's pretend for a moment that Friedman actually came out with a preamp from the JJ series, that was ripped straight out of the head. And then we took out the power amp section to turn it into a slave ala Marshall 9000 style.
If we go from the pre-amp out to the power-amp in, this is, to my understanding, not the same as the actual preamp and poweramp coupling as a head. And that "hitting the power amp up front" is part of what creates the sound and feel of a hotrodded head.
So the meta question is then, can a rack setup ever be as good as a head? Even if we use the actual pre and power sections?
E.g. The recto pre + a 2:100, what special requirements are there for this combo to bridge the gap between rack gear and a head in two parts?
Is a simple line level boost from an FX out\pre-out enough to hit the power amp properly to simulate the hot coupling of a head? Or is this already factored in and innate to rack gear (i.e. Preamps assume power amps want a hot signal that is slightly boosted over line)
I could be COMPLETELY off the mark here
Let's pretend for a moment that Friedman actually came out with a preamp from the JJ series, that was ripped straight out of the head. And then we took out the power amp section to turn it into a slave ala Marshall 9000 style.
If we go from the pre-amp out to the power-amp in, this is, to my understanding, not the same as the actual preamp and poweramp coupling as a head. And that "hitting the power amp up front" is part of what creates the sound and feel of a hotrodded head.
So the meta question is then, can a rack setup ever be as good as a head? Even if we use the actual pre and power sections?
E.g. The recto pre + a 2:100, what special requirements are there for this combo to bridge the gap between rack gear and a head in two parts?
Is a simple line level boost from an FX out\pre-out enough to hit the power amp properly to simulate the hot coupling of a head? Or is this already factored in and innate to rack gear (i.e. Preamps assume power amps want a hot signal that is slightly boosted over line)
I could be COMPLETELY off the mark here