Quote:
Originally Posted by Mbroady
First, I want to thank Doug Young. He had an older k&K power-pro blend 3 channel preamp that he sent to me.
Second, my understanding of electronics is that of a 5th grader, so keep that in mind when responding (open to an education). 
I already have a guitar with the K&k Mini and mic installed and wanted to experiment with adding the 3rd source, a UST
According to the folks at K&K, both the mini and UST channels are 1 meg with a low ohmic output
Should I be concerned about using another brand UST (fishman, LR baggs, etc)?
..are there other USTs that match the 1 meg and low ohmic spec?
Thanks, looking forward to learning something new |
Glad you're getting around to trying that! I think the answer is "it depends". With impedance, what you want is for the input impedance of the preamp to be greater than the impedance of source (pickup), usually by a multiple of 10X, as I recall. I suspect most USTs will be similar to the K&K UST, and that 1M will be fine. But it's not a spec that's easy to find - no one tells you what the impedance of the transducer is, they'll just recommend an input impedance. And for pickups that aren't sold as passive, they just view the whole thing as a closed system, so you are just supposed to use the preamp they supply. I seem to recall Rick Turner saying that one of his (might have been the Highlander?) expected 100M! (And presumably his preamp supported that)
What will happen if you plug into an impedance that's too low is that you'll lose bass response. Pluging into an impedance that's higher than needed should have little or no impact.
There's also the issue of output level - if the pickup is low-level, will the preamp have enough gain? If the raw pickup is really hot, will it overdrive the preamp? If I recall correctly, the K&K UST is pretty hot.