Solid State Guitar Amp Forum | DIY Guitar Amplifiers

I'm having second thoughts about dual mono vs. stereo chipamp kit for guitar amp build.  I purchased the non-inverting LM3886 stereo kit.  My intentions are to use it as the power amp for my various preamps.  For example PodXT, home built Marshall eighteen, Digitech 2101, etc...  Some are stereo pres, some are mono.  I plan on driving a 2x10 or 2x12 stereo cabinet with it.  The more I read about this stuff the more confused I get.  Can someone explain to me the advantage of using the dual mono kit for this application vs. the stereo kit ?  Thanks for any help.

Hi Zappacat.
            A stereo amp is effectively the same as a two mono Amps.
A stereo amp that recieves two mono signals is just a two ch Amp but the signal is still *mono*
It is only when efx like chorus or trick dely (ie,ping pong) are engaged that you can here stereo.

Remember all these fancy *Stereo* efx do little for live gigs, they are far more suited for studio work.
My advice is get a great *Mono* Guitar Amp sound *First* ,,,an worry about all the fancy stuff when your famous.
My 2 cents worth.  Phil.

Quote from: phatt on October 13, 2009, 10:53:25 AM
Hi Zappacat.
            A stereo amp is effectively the same as a two mono Amps.
A stereo amp that recieves two mono signals is just a two ch Amp but the signal is still *mono*
It is only when efx like chorus or trick dely (ie,ping pong) are engaged that you can here stereo.

Remember all these fancy *Stereo* efx do little for live gigs, they are far more suited for studio work.
My advice is get a great *Mono* Guitar Amp sound *First* ,,,an worry about all the fancy stuff when your famous.
My 2 cents worth.  Phil.

This isn't for live performances.  Mostly for me sitting at home screwing around playing/recording things that noone else will probably ever hear.  I'm VERY familiar with the do's and don'ts when it comes to stereo effects live.  15 years ago I was convinced that was the route to take.

If I were to be playing it live I wouldn't be using a 2x12.  I'm too old to carry those cabs around anymore.

Thanks for your input.  I agree with you.  I need to get it working in mono first.

I"m pretty sure that when talking about chip amps the differance between and Dual mono and a stereo chip amp is that a Dual Mono with have a seperate power supply and Transformer for each channel were a stereo will use the same PSU and transformer for both channels ... the advantage of Dual mono is that there is no Crosstalk between channels and the grounding is easier , the disadvantage is that Dual mono takes up more space in your chassis and is heavier and nearly twice as expensive ......


Cheers

Quote from: Minion on October 17, 2009, 01:36:35 PM
I"m pretty sure that when talking about chip amps the differance between and Dual mono and a stereo chip amp is that a Dual Mono with have a seperate power supply and Transformer for each channel were a stereo will use the same PSU and transformer for both channels ... the advantage of Dual mono is that there is no Crosstalk between channels and the grounding is easier , the disadvantage is that Dual mono takes up more space in your chassis and is heavier and nearly twice as expensive ......


Cheers

That's what I wanted to know.  Thank you very much.

Quote from: Minion on October 17, 2009, 01:36:35 PM
I"m pretty sure that when talking about chip amps the differance between and Dual mono and a stereo chip amp is that a Dual Mono with have a seperate power supply and Transformer for each channel were a stereo will use the same PSU and transformer for both channels ... the advantage of Dual mono is that there is no Crosstalk between channels and the grounding is easier , the disadvantage is that Dual mono takes up more space in your chassis and is heavier and nearly twice as expensive ......


Cheers

That is exactly right.