# Ho's Attenuator



## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

Picked one of these up today. This may be the best piece of gear I've bought. He claims it is different from other attenuators. He calls it a re-amplifier. It takes the signal from the amp and shows the amp a load. It then goes through a 30 watt SS amp to your speaker. I've only had time for a very quick test but with my Mesa TA-30 I can crank the amp volume on full and go from barely hear it to way too loud with very little change in tone. This will be useful for practice but where I see it working better is I can setup my amp to where the tubes are working hard and sound good. Depending on the venue I can use the attenuator to adjust the volume. No more playing with volume, gain, and pedals looking for the tone at different venues. He did warn me I'll probably go through tubes quicker 

Ho is a very interesting character. He has a little shop on Kingsway in Burnaby. It's full of old and new amps being worked on. It's messier than my office. No idea how old he is but he looks old to me and I'm 62. When I went there he wanted to know all about my amps, what music I played, why I wanted an attenuator before he'd tell me anything about them. He has a 100 watt and a 50 watt model. Both have several options. He told me he'd make me the 50 watt model and I didn't need any options. He took my phone number and said it would be $300 (paid when it was done) and would take about three weeks. A week later he phoned me and said it was ready. When I went to pick it up again he wanted to know all about my amps, what type of music etc. Very pleasant and knowledgable guy. I'd heard a lot about his work. This was my first experience but so far I'm impressed. The device couldn't simpler. On/off switch, power light, volume control on the front. Amp in and speaker out on the back


----------



## LanceT (Mar 7, 2014)

I'd heard about Ho and he sounds from your experience exactly how I pictured him. Cool bit of info, thanks.


----------



## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I had one of the Ultimate Attenuators for a while, which is basically Ho's design but in a slightly nicer enclosure. I really loved it while I had it. It worked better the the Dr. Z Air Brake, THD and Weber Mass attenuators I tried. I owned it for a looooong time before I ended up moving to a different rig. Congrats!


----------



## bolero (Oct 11, 2006)

Ho is a great guy, he worked on some of my stuff when I lived out west

that was before his attenuator though

glad to know he is still working on gear. He truly is one of the good tech's of this world.

If I'm ever out there I will surely stop in & say hi

congrats on the attenuator!


----------



## keto (May 23, 2006)

Must be 10 years-ish since I was in his shop on a trip out that way and picked one up. He was old then too


----------



## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Cool. The 're-amper' world is getting a little bigger. This, the BadCat Unleash and the Fryette PowerStation (that I'm aware of). I would miss the controls of the PS but at 1/3 the price, that's a killer unit.

I would take one of these over a passive 'attenuator only' box any day of the week. These are so much more useful - like playing a Champ clean with a drummer.


----------



## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

I had one of these about 8 years ago and I thought it worked quite well. There is a "tone hit" using it (it doesn't sound the same as when the amp is directly connected to the cab) but that initial difference isn't magnified as you lower the overall volume. 

I also had an Unleash and found it always had some weird "sizzle" on the decay. I've been tempted to try a Power Station but the TGP zealots have driven me away from it; they are so over the top positive about it that I really cannot get a grasp of its strengths and weaknesses (many of these guys hyped the Unleash too and refused to acknowledge it had any problems except for being perfect; now the Unleash is suddenly crap and the PS is perfecter).

TG


----------



## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

High/Deaf said:


> Cool. The 're-amper' world is getting a little bigger. This, the BadCat Unleash and the Fryette PowerStation (that I'm aware of). I would miss the controls of the PS but at 1/3 the price, that's a killer unit.
> 
> I would take one of these over a passive 'attenuator only' box any day of the week. These are so much more useful - like playing a Champ clean with a drummer.


I knew the Fryette was a re-amper but didn't know the Badcat was. The Fryette uses 6L6 tubes which may colour the sound but I have no experience with it except for online videos. The solid state amp in the Ho is very simple and very clean. And yeah, price was the reson I bought it. I was looking at the Fryette but it was way over my budget for something I wasn't sure I'd use.


----------



## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Kerry Brown said:


> I knew the Fryette was a re-amper but didn't know the Badcat was. *The Fryette uses 6L6 tubes which may colour the sound but I have no experience with it except for online videos.* The solid state amp in the Ho is very simple and very clean. And yeah, price was the reson I bought it. I was looking at the Fryette but it was way over my budget for something I wasn't sure I'd use.


I don't know who started that myth. Tube power amps do not have a sonic template until they are run non-linear. For years, hi-fi amps came in many flavors of output tubes and they all had one thing in common, they all sounded the same (or as close to transparent as possible). That PS power amp is very linear (transparent) and isn't intended to be pushed into clipping (although no one is stopping you from doing it). 

To me, the big advantage is the reactive load part. It is as close as anything I've seen at loading a clipped tube amp like a speaker would. And with adjustments, there is more control if you don't like it flat. But it is as transparent as anything I've ever heard so far, and light years ahead of any passive attenuator I've heard, if you're trying to knock off more than a dB or two.


----------



## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

High/Deaf said:


> I don't know who started that myth. Tube power amps do not have a sonic template until they are run non-linear. For years, hi-fi amps came in many flavors of output tubes and they all had one thing in common, they all sounded the same (or as close to transparent as possible). That PS power amp is very linear (transparent) and isn't intended to be pushed into clipping (although no one is stopping you from doing it).
> 
> To me, the big advantage is the reactive load part. It is as close as anything I've seen at loading a clipped tube amp like a speaker would. And with adjustments, there is more control if you don't like it flat. But it is as transparent as anything I've ever heard so far, and light years ahead of any passive attenuator I've heard, if you're trying to knock off more than a dB or two.


Always wondered about this. I know back in the 60s and into the 70s tube based stereo amplifiers were a big thing and I remember the THD being very, very low with the high end models. Later when I got into guitars it seemed the exact opposite. Tube amps were used precisely because they coloured the sound. Thanks for the explanation.


----------



## TheYanChamp (Mar 6, 2009)

I would love one someday. Hes done a few repairs for my friends and I and its top notch service. Hope he has a good apprentice, hes getting old now!

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk


----------



## 18Rocks (Jan 3, 2014)

Does have an online store or know if he'd be willing to ship out of province?


----------



## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

I liked the one I had but something just seemed wrong about plugging a $2000 tube amp into a box that feeds the signal into what amounts to a $10 solid state amplifier like you might find in a transistor radio. It somehow still worked OK but I couldn't get past the whole concept of the thing.

What do I know. I saw Sonny Landreth using one with his $100k Dumble.


----------



## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

18Rocks said:


> Does have an online store or know if he'd be willing to ship out of province?


When I bought mine you had to phone him but he is fine with shipping.


----------



## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

Got to spend an hour experimenting with it this morning. My hearing is not good enough at higher frequencies to be able to tell if there is any treble cut. If there is it isn't much. That said it definitely sounds different at very low volumes. It sounds very good but not the same as playing at high volume. I think it's mostly to do with how we perceive sound. I am very happy with it. It will allow me dial in various tones at bedroom levels then get the same tone but just louder later on. Plus it's just plain fun hearing power tubes working. Even at gig levels it's hard to get that in a small bar or even in a jam space without being too loud. That's where this tool will be most useful. When I play loud it won't be too loud to get the tone I'm chasing.


----------



## Louis (Apr 26, 2008)

In 2010 ,..............I asked a question on Vintage amp Forum about the danger of frying
a $500 pair of Smoked Glass Genalex and I opened up a big can of warm and it was locked
because a war going on !........Haha!

What I've understood about this was the awkward mismatch the UA has !..it's a good read though !

Vintage Amps Bulletin Board • View topic - Can I fry a $500 NOS pair of GEC`s with a UA attenuator


----------



## Louis (Apr 26, 2008)

In 2010 ,..............I asked a question on Vintage amp Forum about the danger of frying
a $500 pair of Smoked Glass Genalex and I opened up a big can of warm and it was locked
because a war going on !........Haha!

What I've understood about this was the awkward mismatch the UA has !..it's a good read though !

Vintage Amps Bulletin Board • View topic - Can I fry a $500 NOS pair of GEC`s with a UA attenuator


----------



## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

That was quite a lively thread.

Mr Ho did warn me my tubes would not last as long. If I had very expensive amps with unobtainium tubes I probably wouldn't use an attenuator.


----------



## bolero (Oct 11, 2006)

yeah I prefer my expensive NOS tubes to be unleashed, whole and unfettered

UNLEASH THE FOOKING FURY


to quote monsieur Yngwie

I use a cheap solid state marshall from the '80's, for low volume practice. why waste good tubes for that


----------



## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Louis said:


> In 2010 ,..............I asked a question on Vintage amp Forum about the danger of frying
> a $500 pair of Smoked Glass Genalex and I opened up a big can of warm and it was locked
> because a war going on !........Haha!
> 
> ...


Yes, attenuators are hard on tubes. All attenuators, not just that unit. So are huge venues, iso cabs and anything else that makes your amp work really hard. It's the nature of the beast - if you want power tube distortion, you are wearing tubes harder than if you are not pushing the power section and relying only on preamp or pedal distortion.

To some of us, that cost of maintenance is the cost of the tone we want. You gotta pay to play (literally and figuratively LOL).


{edited} 
I finally got through that Vintage Amp string. I hope this string provides more illumination with less noise. 

Bottom line, from what I read, is that the UA is a 30 ohm load only, meaning an impedance mismatch with most likely every amp out there. And like speaker impedance mismatches, should be done cautiously. The lower the o/p impedance of your amp, the more I'd want to keep an eye on things. A 4 ohm amp output would be a 4:32 mismatch - significant. But I wouldn't worry much about using a 16 ohm output.


----------

