4 ways to connect your guitar to your home stereo (see outline below) 

Didn't expected random Burzum trivia here. I'm suprisingly pleased.

@@xPyrielx you’re welcome ❤

Been thinking of doing that for something

@@StarcleBlaze Yea same. I just released my final black metal ep. I'm now working on alternative rock, noise rock, acoustic, and lofi music

@@LouisBurkhardt thanks for noticing

Johnson Millenium's are great-sounding amps. And unlike other modeling amps, the knobs and buttons make perfect sense, which makes the amp extremely user-friendly. It's heavy as a tank, though

thanks. An old hifi stereo makes a perfectly good solid-state guitar amp head.... it's not rocket science or voodoo, just simple "play what you have"

You'd need a dual mono RCA or the guitar signal will only come through 1 jack.

Yeah that was my first thought, too

Earl Lovejoy hahah, thanks

Yea neat but im out at the word solder.

That's a Johnson Marquis JM120. It's a 120W stereo modeling amp with 2x12's. It was Digitech's answer to the popular Line6 modeling amps that came out in 1999-2001. I still use mine, weekly, at my gig at church. It sounds great.. and the best part is - no programming... tap a switch to pick the amp model you want, turn some knobs... tap the Save button... done!

hahaha, thanks. it actually works pretty good, especially with a stereo preamp.

I solder as well as I play guitar.... which "isn't very"

glad you liked it. I posted it because I had done a search myself, and the available videos on RU-vid, at the time... all kinda sucked. There might be better videos than mine, out there now, I haven't looked

I am 53 and shopped at Radio Shack for decades. I have all kinds of stuff in my bins from Radio Shack

R.i.P radioshack. You will be remembered!

@@ksandbergfl9609 whaaaat, you sound like a 20 year old, (it's meant as a compliment:)

Here in Mexico we still having a few Radio Shack, I think the owners of the franchise didn't want to give up.

Yes, plugging the guitar directly into the stereo (without a pedal or preamp) would require you to crank up the stereo volume pretty high, just to hear it. The RCA jacks on the stereo are "Line In" - they expect signals with a voltage of +/- 1v. The signal coming from your guitar pickup is 0.1v-0.5v, depending on what kind of pickup you have. The output of a pedal can drive Line In inputs just fine. Another concern is the tone --- guitar pickups and RCA (Line IN) inputs have different "impedance".... if you plug an electric guitar directly into a stereo's RCA jack, you will lose a lot of treble (it will sound kind of "dead"). You will have much, much better results if you plug your guitar into a pedal first, then plug the pedal into the RCA jacks....

@@ksandbergfl9609 Thank you for that it was very helpful I appreciate it

I'm not sure I follow, where does your guitar connect to the amp? Are you using two rca cables?

I know! It's unbelievable the good things people throw in the trash. Crazy.

bodhrani jam yeah a record player console

bodhrani jam it's because those speakers were not designed for high output guitar tones

Nuckin' Futs Your rig sounds AWESOME. Have you ever tried, while running in stereo, using a 5-10ms delay on one side??? It sounds friggin HUGE.

Connecting a electric guitar directly into a stereo does indeed suffer from an impedance mismatch, as you note. The impedance mismatch will cause a little bit of volume loss (as you note), but the more noticeable thing is that there will be a loss of treble at the high end. But, it isn't "wrong" and it won't break anything if you do it. I don't consider the sound "bad", just missing some high-end/treble.And not sure you watched the video - but I do indeed demonstrate using a preamp effects unit to feed the stereo. I use the Line out of the preamp, which is the same impedance as the Line In of the stereo.

Bryan Keith you got it bro

you have to modify the phone jack to route the signal to the back of the unit, like to the CD In.. I show it in my video.

because it's more fun to plug into the front of the stereo to make it look/act like a guitar amp. ;-)

Yes, I did that once too. My mom had a huge old console stereo, as big as a couch. I plugged the guitar into a portable cassette player, then ran the headphone out into the Aux In of the stereo. As you said, the cassette circuitry would distort, in a kind of cool way.

@@ksandbergfl9609 that's cool. The things we can do when we put our mind to it.

they say necessity is the mother of invention.... to which I would add -- being a cheap-ass is the mother of necessity ;-)

Yes! Some would argue that it will sound BETTER than a guitar amp, because (generally) high-end HiFi units have better-quality sound specifications than guitar amps... Playing a modeling preamp (like an Eleven Rack, etc) thru a HiFi, using instrument speakers, will blow you away at how good it sounds.

as long as your system has "Line In" or "Aux In" jacks, yes, it should work OK.

In case you haven't seem it yet, I uploaded a new video of the finished amp and cabinet... m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DsxlTBjcfJ4.html

yes, you can use the Aux In

Its not necessary To have cd in.you just need à aux in and bingo you have all you need To connect your connecter

You can burn out the "Phono In" circuit of the stereo... the voltage from a turntable needle is very small, much smaller than the voltage from a guitar pickup.. so DON'T plug your guitar into the Phono In! But plugging your guitar into the "Line In" or "CD/Aux In" will not hurt the stereo. Turning up your stereo VERY LOUD may damage cheap speakers, but that's not because the guitar was plugged into it.

No, it ll burn

any ans?

A hifi stereo head will gladly accept the output of any effects pedal. Plug any pedal you want into it. If you have a "modeling preamp" like a Line6 POD, Johnson J-Station, or Behringer V-Amp... these will actually sound BETTER being played thru a hifi stereo with really good speakers, than if you play them thru a guitar amp.

Think of your guitar as an "aux in". Whatever controls your stereo has, when "aux in" is selected, will affect your guitar signal too.A general rule of thumb is that if you plug the guitar straight into a stereo, there will be a little less treble than when plugged into a guitar amp (you'll have to boost the treble on the stereo to make it sound "the same" as thru a guitar amp). This is due to impedance differences between guitar outputs and outputs from say, a cassette player. But this is easily overcome if you use pedals/stomp boxes, because the outputs of these are almost always "line level" which is the same that the stereo input is expecting.

Right.. but do you think different stereos sound different? I'm assuming they do because of circuit differences, so I guess something like noise reduction would soften the tone a bit. Thing is though, doesn't the impedance mismatch also make for a muddier sounding guitar ?

All guitar amplifiers sound different too, due to circuit differences ;-) You can also make the exact same amp sound different by putting it up off the floor on a chair, or putting it close to a wall versus standing alone in the middle of a room. In my case, I consider the differences "negligible" between playing my Les Paul clean thru my Onkyo stereo versus clean thru any of my guitar amps.. it could be because I'm deaf due to 40+ years of playing rock guitar. But it just doesn't make that much difference to me."Muddiness" can be due to a combination of things, including the type of pickups, thickness/gauge of strings, setup of guitar, input impedance of the amplifier... If it sounds good to your ears, play it.

Yes, all amps will sound different to some degree by nature. I've been running an Onkyo home theatre amps which I just recently blew, so I swapped it out for a spare Sony home theatre amp I had lying around. Even though the setup is identical (same speakers, no changes in EQ, etc) the sound output from my speakers has changed significantly. The same would be true when connecting a guitar. The guitar is essentially just supplying an input signal to the amp - no different to what you would get from an xbox, a PC, an iPod, etc. The amp just takes that, processes/amplifies it, and send it out to whatever speakers you have connected up to it. The only ting I would maybe want to know is what input impedance you are getting, but in all honesty it might not even matter that much. Usually the main factor for an amplifier is the output impedance (i.e. the impedance of the speaker it is driving) - most hifi amps are 8ohm stable, some are 6 ohm stable. A very small number of hifi amps are 4ohm stable. If you drive speakers with an impedance any lower than that you run the risk of damaging your amplifier. But then I would just use the same speakers that I would use for listening to music off my PC / CD Player anyway - simply use an alternate input for when I want to use guitar. Now as for HOW MUCH difference you would hear from one amp to the next - that ultimately depends on the quality of the amp. Going from a cheap $50 no-brand amp off the store of your local electronics shop might well leave you with a singificantly different sound then you would get if you were to buy a nice $2,000 stereo amp - since a cheaper amp can be as much as +/- 3dB variation (sometimes even more) across the audible 20hz - 20khz bandwidth, leading to somewhat of a "natural EQ". On the other hand a really nice quality hifi amp will often be as tight as +/- 0.3dB from 20hz - 20khz, so this would give you a much more natural sound. Assuming natural sound is what you want, that is. Either way, I doubt changing one hifi amp for another would likely make nearly as much auidble difference as changing pickups on your guitar, or using a different speaker. Changing the speaker absolutely WOULD make a big difference to the sound. One big advantage I see to this approch is that for $200 you likely wouldn't get an off trhe shelf amp with anything more than maybe 3" - 4" speaker drivers. However if you use your hifi ampliifer instead you could easily custom build a speaker enclosure using something like a pair of 10" or 12" Peerless 10" SLS woofers (which cost around $60 apiece) and you could have a much bigger and more authoritative sound for similar money. What you're losing, of course, is all of the effect knobs that you'd normally get from a dedicated guitar amp. But I'm sure you could emulate many of those in software or alternatively use pedals or some other method.

Good post! In my case, my out-of-pocket was close to $0 -- my neighbor was throwing out the Onkyo... and I built my 4x8" cabinet out of spare parts I had laying around. You are right -- with a nice effects unit, you don't need all the knobs of a guitar amp. Some will make the argument that studio-quality effects units sound BETTER thru a high-end stereo with studio-quality specs than a guitar amp. The biggest effect on your sound, as you say, will be the quality of the speakers and the design of the speaker cabinet.

Yes with a Hifi stereo as an amp head, you'll have the best results using a modeling preamp like a Line 6, a Jstation, a VAMP, or an Eleven Rack.... as opposed to traditional guitar stomp boxes like I am using in my demo. Thanks for watching!

I have a Line 6, & zoom G3 modelling pedal that I use for backing tracks & the drum beats, which seam to sound particularly nice, to my ears at least. The guitar sounds much better through a guitar amp and now I can use my distortion effects without affecting distortion on the drums. It only cost me a 1/4' plug V2 plug adapter $5.90 and a two prong cable plugged straight into the accessory port of the stereo. K SandbergFL thanks again mate.

In case you haven't seem it yet, I uploaded a new video of the finished amp and cabinet... m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DsxlTBjcfJ4.html

If I connect my guitar to a stereo with a RCA split left and right ( y connector) will it work?

as long as you run your cord from the headphone jack of your distortion pedal into the aux or cd,tape,video in on the back of the stereo it will work

You can splice a speaker cable or solder two leads to a mono 1/4" speaker out jack, and connect them to the input terminals on the speaker. If you have 100 watt amp it's probably best to keep the volume low especially if your speakers are low power handling.

Yea...be REAL careful, as guitar tube amps SHRED hifi speakers. Do yourself a favor and get a real guitar cab with real Celestion speakers, maybe V-30s, Greenback, Creamback, G12T75 or similar. I like Vintage 30s and Greenies with Marshall heads, as do lots of others. Hifi speakers sound like ass with guitar amps, they are full range flat response (sort of) speakers, where guitar speakers are basically 12" mid frequency drivers that soak up and roll off non guitar bands.

Probably you already figured it out, but just connect the line level outputs of your interface to the line in of the power amp.

danyalexsf what do mean, should you get a 1/4 to rca for the guitar and rca to 3.5mm for the pc would to that work, and you connect the four plugs of rca and one 1/4 for the guitar and the other two for the pc via 3.5 mm, because I wanna use virtual pedals and I don't know if it will work a reply would be greatly appreciated

Boston- more than a feeling. Great song!

Pratap Ghanghas the first one is more than a feeling by boston

sxdncss 10/10 profile pic

I'm not sure how I would plug an electric guitar into a violin... ;-)

Which mode?? I have also but i dont know which mode of home theater

@@jmcoffeeartist2204 well mine has different buttons for CD, Tape, Radio and "Game" which is for microphones and all outputs, so if connect my cable and turn on Game mode it works.

Thankyou.. 🔥🔥

Cause I thought to myself why buy an expensive amp when you can buy a big ass speaker and use pedals.

chøke well the tone knobs are just to make it sound more muddy or more clear pedals can make a whole host of other sounds

Phono In does not work. Phono In is far too sensitive (it expects signal levels on the order of millivolts, from the vibration of a little tiny needle on a record player). Plugging a guitar (with signal levels in the range of 0.1-0.7 volts) into Phono In overloads the circuit and it sounds like ear-rape. I did consider cutting traces and doing a more "professional" looking job, but running the wire from the headphone jack, thru the back, to the CD Input was a "10 second solution" that seemed to work just fine... so I left it.

@@ksandbergfl9609 he said ear rape! 😂😂 Not gonna lie broman, I have a man crush on ya. Kindered spirits hahsha

No, the signal coming from a guitar and/or effects preamp will not blow out the Aux In of your amp. On the flip side, if you crank up your amp, there is a good chance you'll blow your speakers, unless you play thru guitar/instrument speakers.

@@ksandbergfl9609 Alright, so the key is to keep the vol low from Amp. Thanks so much man!

Depends what impedance your speakers are. 2 ohms might be a bit low but 4 or 8 ohms is fine for most amps. I mean also guitar speakers are fairly sensitive so a 50 or 100 watt amp should be pretty deafening.

None at all. Tried using wifi, now that has bothersome latency. Zero latency if connected to stereo input

as long as you connect the output of your guitar or pedal to the "Aux In" or "CD In" of your stereo, you should be fine.

Works for me.

The Onkyo hi-fi head does not color the sound much, on its own. If you want to use a hi-fi head as a guitar power amp, you will get better results if your preamp is a "modeling" preamp. The rig in my video sounds "OK" but it does lean towards a "direct to the board" kind of tone... it's basically a bunch of effects pedals plugged into a stereo.

@@ksandbergfl9609 I was really wondering what the difference was between say a stereo power amp rackmount versus the guts in say your average onkyo power amp circuit.

If you're asking if a hifi head could replace (or be used instead of) a traditional solid-state stereo guitar amp -- the answer is YES. This Onkyo in my video has four 50W power outputs... 200W total... I have used this rig in my video for live performances with my band, with no problems.

@@ksandbergfl9609 Thanks. That just convinced me to build me an amp. Prefab amplifier boards are dirt cheap.

@@generalleigh7387 Oh you're a DIY'er? That will work fine. I have a DIY stereo rackmount myself... I once bought a Marshall 8008 at a thrift store, only to learn that it had a burned out main board in it. So I found a cheap ($15) 2x20W audio circuit board and stuck it in the Marshall 8008 chassis... I used an old laptop charger as the 12v power supply.... it works great! I'm very pleased with it.

"guitar level" kinda depends on the pickups you have, it can vary a lot, but even weak pickups put out far more signal than a phone needle... the average humbucker guitar pickup puts out 0.5v or so which is plenty for the Line In. A bigger consideration is the input impedance - Line In versus guitar amp inputs are very different... plugging a guitar straight into a Line In can result in noticeable loss of treble. However, if you plug the guitar into a preamp/effects first and run the effects into the Line In - there should be no issues.

Or something like a Helix, Fractal, Mooer GE200/300, or even go the plug-in route and check out Neural or Mercurial, those would work well with a hifi

There is music equalizer in my home stereo, I can change to pop, rock, jazz and the guitar tone actually changes.

Of course it changes...EQ doesn't care what kind of audio it sees, just like any piece of gear that makes sound. There is a shit ton of tone shaping in an EQ, and it maskes a differenceif its pre or post gain in the signal chain. Some of the most flexible guitar amps (Boogie Mark V) have 2 EQs onboard, one pre and one post. There are only a couple basic rules to follow to hook stuff together: - Sending the right signal level and impedance into the inputs - Amplifer goes last in the chain and plug into speaker only Other than that, have at it and you won't have any problems if you follow those two rules. Also, don't EVER run a tube amp without a load on the output, whether its an attenuator, load box or speaker. You will destroy the output transformer. I used to run my old Playstation through two 5150 heads with 412 cabs in stereo for video games. The sound of gunfire was like a freight train 😂