Combined Amp/Preamp == same Amp + Preamp?

[zooey]

Is it folks' experience that a combined amp/preamp sounds the same as that model's separate amp and preamp (assuming the same settings of course)?

 

Any difference in DSP usage?

 

Trying to get my head around why I'd ever use the combined versions. I'm still gradually making it through the factory stuff (spending a lot of time with my own variations of some of them), and it seems like when I find one I'd like to explore, I should just immediately split out the amp and preamp. First off, why not, if they do sound the same? Second, you can put fx in between (though I'm not sold on how important that is, amp verb notions aside). But most importantly, you can mix and match different amps and preamps.

 

Is that what most people do? Any downsides?

[duncann]

I look at the combined amp/cab block as nothing more than clutter. You know, that crap that sits in the corner of the room that's always there that just won't leave no matter what you do, because you'll get to it tomorrow. Maybe there's some advantage to a combined block, I don't know. Simplicity? Cleanliness?

 

As for if they sound the same:

1. Place an amp/cab block

2. Create a split by moving that amp/cab to a new path

3. Place an amp block and cab block on the empty path above the amp/cab block that's identical to the components of the amp/cab block.

4. Select the merge block and the B Polarity from normal to reverse.

 

If an amp/cab block and identical split amp/cab blocks are sonically the same, there should be no sound after doing step 4.

 

The above was originally Digital_Igloo's idea.

[njglover]

OP was asking about separate amp and preamp, not amp and cab. To my knowledge, however, the amp blocks are a FULL amp, as in preamp AND power amp, whereas the preamps would be just the preamp section of a given guitar amp. There are NOT, to my knowledge, individual power amps. So all you would be doing is running the preamp into another preamp into the power amp, which accomplishes nothing except an extra gain stage.

[duncann]

Oops. Must have misread or had something else on my mind as I was writing.

 

Separate poweramp blocks aren't in Helix, as njglover said. There is an ideascale entry for it though.

[zooey]

Ach, my bad. You're right, that's what I said, but not what I meant. I WAS actually meaning to talk about separate amp and cab vs not.

 

So Duncann's answer was appropriate.

[duncann]

Lol. I said but didn't mean what I said, eventually, which is actually, now, what I meant, because you meant to say what you didn't mean by saying something else, which means that...

[PeterHamm]

I tested when I first got it and found that if you use the same settings, the amp + appropriate cab and teh amp+cab are identical, and the latter, to me, is not worth messing with.

[amsdenj]

The primary advantage of separate amp and cabinet models is that the cab models support two cabinets, not just one. And they can be set a bit differently to get a nice stereo effect. Another advantage is that you can easily change the cab block to an IR block, and don't have to change anything in the amp.