Backstory - I've had this LC15R amp since I bought it new, in about 2002. I've always absolutely loved its tone - the way it can do lovely Vox-y cleans (admittedly not much headroom there) and just-breaking-up crunch, but also go to a pretty good impersonation of a Marshall. BUT it's always been too loud for driven sounds at home volume - if I want an AC/DC-esque tone, about six on the gain, I have to have the master volume down at just approaching one. So, I bought an AC30VR a year ago. This certainly can do the trick of medium-gain tone at sensible volume, because it's mostly solid state. All good.
But I've just got the Laney out to test everthing is working before I put it up for sale, and I made the mistake of A/B-ing it with the Vox, and... I can't sell it. It's so much more articulate than the Vox. The cleans shimmer more, the drive is more organic. It's lovely.
I don't need to sell it- I don't need the money or the space that badly, so for the time being I'll hang on to both and see what I'm thinking in a few months. I suspect I will, in the fullness of time, think about selling the Vox.
So here's the point of my post - what's the best way to mod the Laney to get lower volume whilst driving it a bit harder? I'm considering an L-pad attenuator, as discussed extensively on here - I'm planning to use the 'Elevenator' circuit from guitar dot com, but without bothering with the 4/8 ohm switch and taking note of ICBM's comments about the bypass. But I do see that whenever attenuators are mentioned on here, the advice seems to be to ask if an attenuator is the best way to go for your particular amp, so I guess question one is - is this attenuator a good call with this amp (three ECC83 into two EL84)?
Or is there another way I should be considering? I know that some Laneys have a very useful 1w settting - is there any sensible way to mod my LC15 to obtain this? I'm reasonably capable with a soldering iron but I am by no means an electical engineer!
Would switching to a less responsive speaker (maybe a Greenback) make much difference? I suspect not.
Or - an idea I've wondered about in the past - what would happen if I got three knackered 8ohm speakers, removed their cones, and wired them with the existing speaker as two parallel pairs of two in series (to retain 8ohms overall)? Would this result in three quarters of the power going to more or less silent speakers, and a corresponding volume reduction? Or is it just too much faff to contemplate?
Thanks for any advice!
Comments
A less sensitive speaker - probably one of the Jensens will be the lowest - won't make much difference at all, it will knock off at most a few dB, which is like turning the master volume from 6 down to 5 or something similar. Even using the three-dead-speaker idea would only reduce it by 6dB, and it would be a faff to knock up too. (But with only about 4W going to each voice coil, probably wouldn't burn them out - normally you can't do this at higher power levels because the coil relies on the air movement to cool itself.)
For what it's worth, if you don't really want to sell the Vox either, try it with a better speaker too - the stock one is crap.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
When I was working on one of those I thought it was a bit weak and flat-sounding for a 30W Vox, so I hooked it up to a pair of Mesa OEM V30s - the difference in tone and volume was amazing.
It’s no problem at all, it will just give a slightly different volume taper.
If you do need to mismatch amp/attenuator/speaker for any reason, always match the amp to the attenuator since that’s what the amp sees as the load - the speaker very quickly becomes irrelevant once the attenuator is much below -3dB.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Don't remove the cloth, you're right that you'll never get it back on straight. If you're careful you may be able to get the tip of a screwdriver through the weave of it without damaging the threads - actually a small flat-blade one will usually grip the bolt head enough, and will be easier to get through the cloth.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Your wiring is unnecessarily complex and potentially unreliable - all you need is an SPDT centre-off switch. Connect the speakers in series (as you have) and use the switch to bypass one or the other. That way the speakers are always connected to the amp and the worst that can happen if the switch fails is that both are then on.
Wire the switch with the centre terminal to the junction between the two speakers and the end terminals to the other sides of each speaker.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
(Well, to be completely accurate if you parallel it the total resistance of the cable is reduced by a quarter, but with the gauges and lengths you’re talking about here it makes no practical difference.)
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Where does all the heat go? Do they literally just work on their own, or do they need to be connected to something else for them to work?
i.e. Of course they need to be connected to other things in the amplifier, but they look tiny. I can't imagine that one knob with whatever network of resistors it may have attached to it happily taking the full output of a 100 plexi... ?
They were originally designed as treble and midrange controls for ‘hi-fi’ speaker systems - not really ‘hi-fi’ by modern standards! You can see the L-pad knobs on these vintage Wharfedales. (These ones are very sophisticated with bass controls as well and separate tweeter boxes!)
The ‘100W’ is the rating for the whole system. Given that in a full-range music programme mix each of the frequency bands only use about a third of the total power, that means that the L-pad is really only capable of handling about 30W.
And since an overdriven amp - also not what they’re designed for! - will put out up to double the clean rating, the real “guitar amp rating” on them is more like 15W, possibly 20 at the outside.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein