Laney LX-120RH

draigbach

Hi all, I am really new to the world of electric guitars so sorry if this is a daft question. Having recently acquired an electric acoustic guitar along with a Laney LX120RH, I need to know do I need speakers or power amp or both to be able to hear the guitar or should the sound come directly from the LX120RH.
Any help muchly appreciated.

DJH83004

The 120RH is the reverb head, so yes you do need a separate speaker cab, I suggest a 2x12. I actually had the 2x12 combo version in recently for service, and they are pretty loud for solid state amps

ICBM

To be honest the LX120 is highly unsuitable for an electro-acoustic guitar - it's really an electric guitar amp (ie distortion generating). It does have a clean channel, but even that will be far from ideal.

Given that you also need to buy a speaker cab to run it, I would suggest it's probably better to trade it in for an acoustic guitar combo amp, which would work much better with your guitar.

DJH83004

Taking ICs very valid point I misread your post as being a semi acoustic, say a 335 style guitar not an acoustic with maybe a piezo pickup, which wouldn’t work well with the Laney at all

draigbach

Many thanks for the info, I will go ahead and buy a more suitable set up. Just to be clear I will need to test the Laney for purpose of exchange or sell, when you say speaker cab can I use my behringer speakers or do I need to use the power amp and pre amp connectors that are on the back of the Laney. Many thanks.

draigbach

Many thanks for the info, I will go ahead and buy a more suitable set up. Just to be clear I will need to test the Laney for purpose of exchange or sell, when you say speaker cab can I use my behringer speakers or do I need to use the power amp and pre amp connectors that are on the back of the Laney. Many thanks.

ICBM

What sort of speakers are they - passive or active?

Passive - only have speaker input connections, used with a powered mixer amp.

Active - have line input and power cable connections, used with a mixer.

If they're passive you can connect them to the Laney using the main speaker output jacks, but be careful - PA speakers don't like distortion and there's a risk of blowing the tweeters if you turn it up too far on the 'Drive' channel. It will also sound bad. The clean channel should sound OK.

If they're active you can't really test the Laney properly with them - you could connect the preamp out to the input of the speaker which would tell you the preamp is working, but it won't tell you if the power section is working. But the chances are it probably will be - this is a solid-state amp, and they almost always only have two states, fully working and completely dead! It's fairly rare for one to be 'partly' working.

Just to be absolutely clear we're talking about the right thing here, what's the brand and model name/number of the guitar?

I understand this can all be a bit confusing at first .

draigbach

Thanks again, they are passive speakers and the guitar is a fender acoustic dg60ce, with built in pre amp.

ICBM

draigbach said:

Thanks again, they are passive speakers and the guitar is a fender acoustic dg60ce, with built in pre amp.

That's good. In which case, connect the Laney's main speaker outputs to the Behringer speakers, make sure the amp is on the clean channel, set the volume low and try it. It may even sound OK like that! In which case you could use it if you don't have any immediate need for something else.

Test the drive channel with both the crunch control and the master very low - it will probably sound horrible, and will almost certainly feed back very easily if you turn either of them up too far, which will not be good for the speakers. You may be able to get a tolerable sound with the treble and bass down low and the mid up, but don't expect too much - it will be very harsh and buzzy through PA speakers, and at any higher volume is a definite risk to the tweeters.

draigbach

After all that it looks like it's a duffer, lights come on and can hear the speakers humming but no sound out. 

ICBM

draigbach said:

After all that it looks like it's a duffer, lights come on and can hear the speakers humming but no sound out. 

Try plugging the guitar into the FX return - make sure the volume on the guitar is right down first or it may be suddenly very loud .

It's possible that there's either a problem with the Laney preamp, or actually with the FX loop itself - with lack of use the loop jack contacts sometimes corrode and you get no sound. Plugging into the return bypasses both the preamp and the jack switch.

DJH83004

Your Fender has a preamp which contains a 9 volt battery which may be flat if the lead has been left in. Take the lead out of the guitar, plug it into the amp and at very low volume touch the tip, you should get a buzzing noise through the speakers

ICBM

DJH83004 said:

Your Fender has a preamp which contains a 9 volt battery which may be flat if the lead has been left in.

Ah, that's a good point .

draigbach

Sorry, have been away for a few days, thanks for the comments I will give them a go.