# anyone else use an attenuator?



## fartecho (Feb 6, 2006)

i just picked up an amp attenuator on ebay so i could maximize my amp's sound without blowing speakers and such...i've had pretty good success with it so far. anyone else using one?


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

I have utilized a Rockman Power Soak for many years. It's the only way to go and stay out jail. There are not a lot on the market really. Other than the Marshall.


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## fartecho (Feb 6, 2006)

GuitarsCanada said:


> I have utilized a Rockman Power Soak for many years. It's the only way to go and stay out jail. There are not a lot on the market really. Other than the Marshall.


yea mine's definitely a homemade job. didn't really dig the idea of forkin out 100+ bones for something i should probably know how to make even with my minimal electronics knowledge.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Agreed, that Marshall is like $300 I think... very expensive


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Ted Weber in the US makes many models of attenuators:

http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm


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## Xanadu (Feb 3, 2006)

I have an attenuate button on my cd-mp3 car-deck...


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## Imported_goods (Mar 4, 2006)

I've been using a Weber MASS for three years now, which is exactly how old my eldest child is  

The MASS was a necessity with a baby in the house, mainly because my amps are non-master volume amps and cranking up was absolutely impossible...

I am quite satisfied with the MASS - the tone-shaping capacities, variable impedance settings and line out make it IMHO a good value - for those of us with no electronics or technical knowledge, at least.


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## Tarbender (Apr 7, 2006)

I just picked up the Weber MiniMass. For an apartment dweller it's a lease saver. And at only $75.00 it's alot cheaper that the next best one out there the THD Hotplate or the the Dr. Z. Airbrake which run @ USD$300.00 and up. I can krank my Superbaby and get blissful tube saturation at livable volume levels.


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## Emohawk (Feb 3, 2006)

I have a 100w Laney head, so an attenuater is basically essential - unless you like being stone deaf.

I pickup a THD Hot Plate. Works great with my amp. I have heard they're not so great with some modern high gain multi-channel heads. Not sure why that is, but my guess would be that a lot of those heads are designed to sound good at lower volumes. Just a wild guess.


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## Tarbender (Apr 7, 2006)

I don't know enough to say if your right or wrong, But the Webers work on a different principal from the THD's which uses some kind of funky cirrcuits. The Weber actually has a pot which isn't a pot but really a voice coil, which isn't really a voice coil but a ....never mind. I get confused too easy these days...must be the nitro fumes..yes I do guitars too.


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## bryanjetboy (Feb 18, 2006)

*-->THD Hotplate*

111111111111111


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## Emohawk (Feb 3, 2006)

Tarbender said:


> I don't know enough to say if your right or wrong, But the Webers work on a different principal from the THD's which uses some kind of funky cirrcuits. The Weber actually has a pot which isn't a pot but really a voice coil, which isn't really a voice coil but a ....never mind. I get confused too easy these days...must be the nitro fumes..yes I do guitars too.


To be honest, I don't know enough to say either. I've heard a few people say it but I have no first hand experience. A friend of mine usea a Hot Plate with a Bogner and it sounds fine. I've never heard him complain. I also know a guy using one with a DSL100 & he's happy with it.

I've heard good things about the Mass also, and I was gonna order one but a local dealer started carrying THD gear so I picked this up on an impulse, plus I had used a friend's with my amp & it worked great.

I think the Mass actually uses a speaker engine to bleed off power by converting it to mechanical energy. The THD uses a funky circuit to transfer it to heat, so it's sort of a fancy heat sink. And there's where my electrical engineering expertise ends...


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## Emohawk (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanjetboy said:


> I use the 8 ohm Hotplate
> Works great!


Hey man. Have you found that the bulbs on/off switch makes any audible difference? It's supposed to be some sort of noise reduction thing, but I can't hear much of any effect.

But the light looks kinda cool - but would be annoying after a while I suppose.


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## cale0906 (Apr 15, 2006)

*Ultimate Attenuator*

I havent used them b4 but i heard the Ultimate Attenuator is one of the best , but expensive


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## motorhead (Jun 26, 2006)

I bought a 16 ohm Hotplate 3 years ago and now all my amp heads get directed through the Hotplate as if it was a Master Volume. It add a bit of compression but sometimes that exactly what I want. The highlight is that a 30 watt amp head can be on the same page as a 100 watt head.


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## iggs (Apr 6, 2006)

I use a 16 ohm Hot Plate at home and it works very well, no probs whatsoever. Few notes though:
- the bulbs act as a noise reduction circuit and as such do affect the sound, not too much and not in a negative way but enough that I like them OFF
- Bright and Deep switches are quite effective but I keep them OFF as well because I find them to be a bit too much
- huge part of the sound when playing loud is speaker cone distortion and when attenuating your amp down it will NEVER sound exactly like when it's cranked because you're not pushing the speakers hard enough, however, it does sound better then most master volumes.


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## CocoTone (Jan 22, 2006)

I`ve been using a Weber Mass 100 with all my amps, and won't ever play without one again. I don't know how I got on all these years without one!!! The key, is bringing the right amp for the room, and then attenuating down just enogh to maintain tone. Too much attenuation, and you lose articulation and top end, as well as fattness. If you have to attenuate more than say 25%, then you`ve brought too much amp. I even use it with my Guitarmate!!! Works awesome with my Super Reverb as well. It allows me to run it at 6 on the vol, which, if you've ever had a SR, then you know how loud that is!!!!evilGuitar: 

CT.


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## ne1roc (Mar 4, 2006)

I've been using a Weber Mass 100 for 2 months now with my Carvin Legacy.
I love it. The Weber is great because you have the option of dialing up different speaker impedance values. THD wins for looks though!


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## elcabong (Mar 6, 2006)

Tarbender said:


> I don't know enough to say if your right or wrong, But the Webers work on a different principal from the THD's which uses some kind of funky cirrcuits. The Weber actually has a pot which isn't a pot but really a voice coil, which isn't really a voice coil but a ....never mind. I get confused too easy these days...must be the nitro fumes..yes I do guitars too.


The Weber Mass serie uses what they call a speaker motor, basically a speaker without the cone and all. It applies a reactive load on the amp and should have less effect with the tone.

I have a MiniMass and it does affect the tone even in the lowest setting. The amp sounds dull, kind of lifeless. It is still useable at higher settings.

I like it anyway since, hey, it does attenuate and it was not as expensive as other models on the market.


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## Lemmy Hangslong (May 11, 2006)

I've been using a Koch Load Box for 4 years now.. I love the results I get with it. I mainly use it with my Soldano. The speaker moddeler is very cool the headphones out really sucks.

Craig


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## Benee Wafers (Jul 1, 2006)

O.K. O.K. I've got to know. What is an attenuator made for? What is its function.?
Benee Wafers


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## Benee Wafers (Jul 1, 2006)

I went to Wilkipedia to find the answer and learned that it is used to reduce the volume output. I guess that means that you are increasing volume to get a desired tone/distortion and then use the Attenuator to reduce the volume.
One sentence that did catch my eye was this.........Use of an attenuator can potentially damage an amplifier.
Benee Wafers


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## elcabong (Mar 6, 2006)

It is well possible to damage an amp while using an attenuator but it is not necessarily a direct cause. The thing is that playing an amp at full bore, with or without an attenuator puts more stress on the power amp, tubes and power supply.

There is also the fact that inserting an equipment between the amp and the speaker increase the number of points of failure.

Just my 2 cents!:wave:


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## Deadwrong (Feb 9, 2006)

Emohawk said:


> I have a 100w Laney head, so an attenuater is basically essential - unless you like being stone deaf.
> 
> I pickup a THD Hot Plate. Works great with my amp. I have heard they're not so great with some modern high gain multi-channel heads. Not sure why that is, but my guess would be that a lot of those heads are designed to sound good at lower volumes. Just a wild guess.



I use my THD 8 ohm with my 5150, no problems with me......i likey.:rockon2:


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## Emohawk (Feb 3, 2006)

Deadwrong said:


> I use my THD 8 ohm with my 5150, no problems with me......i likey.:rockon2:


I hear ya. A friend of mine uses one with his Bogner XTC Classic & it sounds just fine to me. Then again, I don't know how you'd make that amp sound bad...but for that kind of coin that better be the case!


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## 55 Jr (May 3, 2006)

I use this turned to pat. pending.










A Dr Z Airbrake allows a person to stay in the same room with it.

Best regards,

Brian


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## µ¿ z3®ø™ (Apr 29, 2006)

i couldn't live w/o attenuators.
i have a few hotplates and a Dr. zed airbrake. the airbrake sounds great on the EL84 amps.
the only potential for damaging the amp is if one used a shielded guitar cable rather than a proper non shielded speaker cable. yes, if U have the amp cranked out, U will wear the output tubes out more rapidly. this isn't a function of the attenuator, tho'. 
turning the bulb on and off on the hotplate does affect the compression of the amp in a subtle way.
tone is affected w/ the use of attenuators in several ways. one way is a function of how the ear perceives frequency extremes as volume decreases. this is related to the fletcher/munson curve which shows that as volume decreases, the perceived bass and treble seems disproportionately attenuated. the hotplate attempts to address this somewhat w/ the use of the treble and bass switches. 
any amplifier/speaker circuit will have a distinctive impedance curve which, in most cases will vary w/ frequency. altho' an amp may be a nominal 8 ohms, in fact the impedance will vary by a significant margin over the frequency response of the guitar. every different speaker cabinet will have a different impedance curve and this varying impedance curve will affect the frequency response of the amplifier driving the speaker. so all of the attenuators attempt to have a varying impedance curve which reflects what a speaker cab would be. by the very nature of different speaker cabinets haveing different impedance curves and an attenuator only having one chosen impedance curve, the different impedance curve of the attenuator will affect the frequency response to some degree. i suspect that the impedance curve of the 16 ohm THD hotplate is very close to that of a marshall 4-12 as the 16 ohm hotplate sounds very good used w/ a marshall 4-12 while not as convincing using it w/ a vox AC30 or similar amp. i suspect the impedance curve of the ken fisher designed airbrake more closely resembles that of the 2-12 celestion AlNiCo as found in vox/like amps.
the third way tone is affected by the use of attenuators is, as pointed out above, because the speakers themselves are not being pushed as hard and so are not compressing the signal from the amp as much or adding varying degrees of mechanical distortion. i believe that much of this difference is masked when playing in an ensemble situation, but use of a compressor like one of the dan armstrong orange squeezer clones can be very effective to simulate the type of compression/distortion one gets from speakers being pushed really hard.
since i adopted the use of attenuators some 20 years ago i have never had any complaints of my stage volume. and my ears are very thankful, as well.


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## Lemmy Hangslong (May 11, 2006)

One sentence that did catch my eye was this.........Use of an attenuator can potentially damage an amplifier.
Benee Wafers

I don't know about that one... I mean are Load Brakes dangerous or is running your amp full tilt for long periods of time dangerous... some ( and there are a lot of them ) amps are built to be ran full tilt and ofcoase the harder you work something the sooner it will reach it's productive end... maintenance, repair and replacement is inevitable. Take a indie race car... pinacle of design... built to run exceedingly well at hi output... they still break down and need maintenance, repair, and eventually get replaced.

You just gotta keep this in mind the load brake takes some of the load that would normally go to the speakers thus choking the output to the speakers from the amp resulting in a lower overal output volumn... B DEE B DEE B DEE thats all folks.

Moral of the story is learn how to keep you amp(s) running at their best possible... and never never use a Marshall Load Brake... they tend to catch fire.

KHINGPYNN


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