I am relatively new to playing electric guitar, while I do have an ongoing interest in vinyl turntables. I have amplifiers for my vinyl setup, but as I started to acquire equipment for my electric guitar, I came across a large speaker with an amp built into it called a “guitar amplifier.” There are also stand-alone amplifiers that are specifically designed for guitars, like the “Universal Audio OX Amp Top Box.” I’m curious about the difference between the two and whether it would be possible to use a guitar amplifier like the “Universal Audio OX Amp Top Box” on my vinyl setup.
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Firstly, the Universal Audio OX is *not* an amplifier. It’s a “load box” – a device that emulates the load that a loudspeaker places on a guitar amplifier. It’s purpose is to allow you to run a guitar amplifier at very high volume (which produces a desirable sound for many genres of music) without also having to deal with the very high sound levels produced, as the load box can silently dissipate the power coming from the amp instead. I don’t know much about turntable amps but if you want a way to run a valve/tube turntable amp as loud as possible, tol get it distorting, but don’t want loud speaker volumes then a load box would be useful. I can’t imagine that’s a common use case for turntable amps though.
Other than that, guitar amps and turntable amps obviously have some things in common. However, the pre-amps on the two will be different as they are expecting different signals. If I remember correctly, phono pre-amps apply an RIAA EQ to their input, which would be very undesirable in a guitar amp.
The loudspeakers used are quite different too. Speakers for playing back recorded music need to play back a wide range of frequencies without colouring the sound. Guitar speakers are very focussed on the mid-range sounds and have limited high- and low-frequency response, plus colouring the sound is considered a desirable quality and people choose guitar speakers based on how they affect the guitar’s sound.
Lastly, guitar amps are almost always mono but there have been stereo vinyl recordings since the 1930s.
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