BS170 Booster questions

[blanik]

hi all, with a mosfet booster like the AMZ Booster or SHO, the high input resistance make them "pull" less power from your pickups thus keeping the magnetic field around your pickups stronger (according to what i read on the net):

if you put a buffered pedal (like a tuner) before the booster do you still have this advantage?

and if you max the booster before sending it in the other pedals (like an old wah or boss) can you hurt them?

and will the power delivered by the booster hit the amp the same way (as hard) if it goes through another pedal before?

sorry, question bombing... 

[petemoore]

if you put a buffered pedal (like a tuner) before the booster do you still have this advantage?
  Read up on buffers, 1/1 gain, high input imp. low output imp., so yes I guess.

and if you max the booster before sending it in the other pedals (like an old wah or boss) can you hurt them?
  Not with a 9v booster
and will the power delivered by the booster hit the amp the same way (as hard) if it goes through another pedal before?
  Maybe not to no. Just about anytime a component is placed in a signal chain, if it's not a wire, there's a good chance it'll change the signal, but if the pedal's a loop box, then the booster would sound the same..
  The answers to these abound when you take a pedal and another pedal and an amp and cables and...whatever else you have...and try chaining them, and observing what a buffered in bypass pedal does to other pedals, your amp, under different conditions, pull a pedal out of the chain, try try again.

[R.G.]

hi all, with a mosfet booster like the AMZ Booster or SHO, the high input resistance make them "pull" less power from your pickups

That part's kind of correct. The high input impedance keeps the booster from sucking down so many high frequencies because pickups are inductive. That means they can put out less current at high frequencies than at low frequencies. Pulling less power from pickups is... an odd way to put that.

thus keeping the magnetic field around your pickups stronger (according to what i read on the net):

What you read on the net is at best a misapprehension about this bit at least. The magnetic field around your pickups is largely constant. Those are permanent magnets in the pickups.

if you put a buffered pedal (like a tuner) before the booster do you still have this advantage?

Let's think about this for a moment.

A buffer has two advantages, one at the input and one at the output. The input advantage is that it eats very, very little current, and so does not load things down. The output advantage is that it has a very strong current output, and can drive heavy loads without being loaded down.

If you put something else in front of it, this eliminates the input advantage. Another buffered pedal in front of a MOSFET substitutes its input impedance for the MOSFETs, obviously. So whatever loading the substitute does on the pickups is what the pickup sees. Put a load-y wah pedal in front of it, and the pickups lose treble because they are loaded down. The MOSFET can't "reach through" the other pedal to improve loading on pickups.

and if you max the booster before sending it in the other pedals (like an old wah or boss) can you hurt them?

It depends entirely on the other pedals. If you're using a 9V powered booster as pete says, it's very unlikely. But it may sound very ugly, because you will be driving the other pedals far, far outside their intended input range. Maybe good, maybe bad.

and will the power delivered by the booster hit the amp the same way (as hard) if it goes through another pedal before?

Again, a little thought shows that the output advantages of a MOSFET booster are wasted if you use it to drive another pedal before the amp. The MOSFET booster can't push the amp through another pedal. The other pedal's output impedance and drive are what the amp sees.

If you want the high input impedance of a MOSFET booster and at the same time the amp driving ability of a MOSFET booster and also at the same time several other pedals, you need two MOSFET boosters, one right after the guitar and one just before the amp.

[blanik]

thanks !!! precise awnser...