[Midlandmorgan]

Using a separate preamp/power amp can offer a lot of versitility, but it does have its own sets of problems.

- Grounding: you gotta make double sure there is only one ground point, or you'll get hum.
- More loadin/loadout stuff: with a rack unit, you need (obviously) a rack for the pre/power and subsequent effects, a stereo speaker setup, connection cables, control cables for the obligatory footswitches, etc...
- Much more weight to lug around

There are several advantages, though:

- Consistent sound from room to room
- Gear is fairly well protected in racks
- Most guitar oriented power amps have both line level in and out, facilitating adding more amps/cabs as needed
- When set up properly, they sound great!

A simpler solution may be to get hold of a combo amp with a preamp out/power amp in jack...plugging your 2101 into the poweramp in bypasses the combo amps pre section, and allows you to use the combo amp as an amplifier and speaker cab, great for smaller gigs. I did this for several years: Mesa Boogie Studio preamp or Mosvalve BlueTube II, with a reverb and echo in the loop, pre output plugged into the power amp return of a MusicMan RD100-112...