quick 50/50 question

[sleewell]

hello,

first off i am new here, my name is Bill. i love mesa amps, i have owned a few over the years and always love how they sound compared to other amps i have owned or played. right now i play a strat or tele into a full drive 2 > modded boss ds1 and have a TC nova system and 31 band eq in the loop.


i have a quick question regarding my 50/50. right now i only have one 4x12 cab and am not really needing both sides of the amp for the places we are playing. my question is do i need to have the b side of the amp plugged in to speakers or is it ok as long as nothing is plugged into the b input? i heard that you should keep the volume of the unused side at 0 and the presence at 10 - is that true or a myth? just want to make sure i am not messing up the amp and at the same time getting the most life out of the tubes.

also should i be switching what side of the amp i am using periodically to wear the tubes evenly or is that not a factor? could i just use one side till the tubes are worn out and then switch to the other side and have a fresh set?

i guess i could wire the cab to stereo and use both sides with my one 4x12 but 50 watts is already really loud, i cant imagine what 100 watts from this beast would sound like.


anywho... thanks for the replies,

Bill

 

[Mongo1]

I would keep a load on the outputs regardless if there is any signal passing through.
If it were me, I'd wire the cab in stereo. That allows you the option to run a stereo signal or split mono if you want.

I've run two 4x12's that way in the past (split vertically) and it was very cool. We ended up putting one on each side of the stage and both guitarists used half of each of them. The stereo separation was great!

 

[Jackie]

Technically you don't need a load on the unused channel if you null the Level for it.
But like Mongo1 said, I'd keep one just for safety, you might forget you don't have a load and turn up the level... not so great for your amp.

 

[sleewell]

great, thanks for the replies!