Load boxes with high watt marshalls

Springywheel

I have a torpedo load box that can take 100w RMS max. As I understand it a 50w marshall can exceed 50 rms when cranked but to what extent? can I safely use the torpedo, or should I upgrade to 200 RMS? The amp I'm looking at by the way is the 1987 though I'm also considering the 1959 100 watter. Likewise would a 200 RMS box be enough to tame that? I have a bunch of low wattage amps already but I kind of prefer the feel of the high watters

ICBM

A 1987 will peak at around 90W fully overdriven, from memory. A 1959 can exceed 200W - definitely not safe with a load box rated for 100W unless it’s explicitly for a ‘100W amp’.

tekbow

ICBM said:

A 1987 will peak at around 90W fully overdriven, from memory. A 1959 can exceed 200W - definitely not safe with a load box rated for 100W unless it’s explicitly for a ‘100W amp’.

Two Notes are notably ambiguous and unclear about this.

The old Torpedo Reload (now disco'd) had very specific ratings In the manual of 150w RMS and 200w peak.

The captors, from memory, just tell you that it's rated to 100w, and that full volume is reached much sooner than fully dimed, after that, it's just increasing saturation so don't turn your amp past max volume, which to me defeats the purpose of a loadbox.

I have never considered them a loadbox for a 100w amp, as much as I love Two Notes and use a bunch of their stuff.

I can tell you that the Suhr RL was, in Suhr's words, designed to take a breaking up plexi, and can confirm because it handled my JCM800 1959 very nicely back when it was non master volume.

I can also tell you that, for some reason, under certain conditions, my Reload went into thermal protection mode with my SLO100 (at 16 ohms with the channel gain dimed and the master at 7), whereas the Suhr can handle that fine.

Interesting the Reload could handle the 1959 whilst cranked into power amp breakup.

goldtop

It's a grey area that's ignored by all attenuator and load box makers. The old spec sheets of '70s Marshall showed their excessive power output relative to the claimed power output.

It's especially bad because distorted signals have so much energy and compression compared to spanky clean. No wonder so many speaker voice coils burned out back in the days when backline was king.

So I chose a 2x to 3x safety margin, and I've slowly gravitated away from 100W amps, and 'make do' with their 30-50W little brothers into 100W rated loads. (Or a properly designed MV 100Wer.)

nero1701

tekbow said:

ICBM said:

A 1987 will peak at around 90W fully overdriven, from memory. A 1959 can exceed 200W - definitely not safe with a load box rated for 100W unless it’s explicitly for a ‘100W amp’.

Two Notes are notably ambiguous and unclear about this.

The old Torpedo Reload (now disco'd) had very specific ratings In the manual of 150w RMS and 200w peak.

The captors, from memory, just tell you that it's rated to 100w, and that full volume is reached much sooner than fully dimed, after that, it's just increasing saturation so don't turn your amp past max volume, which to me defeats the purpose of a loadbox.

I have never considered them a loadbox for a 100w amp, as much as I love Two Notes and use a bunch of their stuff.

I can tell you that the Suhr RL was, in Suhr's words, designed to take a breaking up plexi, and can confirm because it handled my JCM800 1959 very nicely back when it was non master volume.

I can also tell you that, for some reason, under certain conditions, my Reload went into thermal protection mode with my SLO100 (at 16 ohms with the channel gain dimed and the master at 7), whereas the Suhr can handle that fine.

Interesting the Reload could handle the 1959 whilst cranked into power amp breakup.

@AmyTwonotes ;

Any info you can provide?

AmyTwonotes

Hi @nero1701,

Thanks for the tag! We have a handy article below that may help:
https://helpdesk.two-notes.com/portal/en/kb/articles/can-i-use-an-amplifier-more-powerful-than-the-rated-power-of-a-torpedo-product

We appreciate some users may want to drive their power-amp into saturation and agree you can get some killer results with this; however the manner in which power amplifiers are configured / designed between amp models differs greatly so there is no hard and fast rule as to where to set your power-amp. As such, if you are using a Captor / Captor X with an amp rated higher than 100W, please refer to our help desk article above. If you have any additional questions, please let me know!

tekbow

AmyTwonotes said:

Hi @nero1701,

Thanks for the tag! We have a handy article below that may help:
https://helpdesk.two-notes.com/portal/en/kb/articles/can-i-use-an-amplifier-more-powerful-than-the-rated-power-of-a-torpedo-product

We appreciate some users may want to drive their power-amp into saturation and agree you can get some killer results with this; however the manner in which power amplifiers are configured / designed between amp models differs greatly so there is no hard and fast rule as to where to set your power-amp. As such, if you are using a Captor / Captor X with an amp rated higher than 100W, please refer to our help desk article above. If you have any additional questions, please let me know!

Hi Amy, I love Two-Notes stuff, I own a Reload, CABM+ and a ton of virtual cabs.

But there would appear to be a hard and fast rule which is that typically, the rating of an amp is for clean headroom, so don't exceed that. for amps that use power-amp breakup or compression as a component of the sound, like a JCM800 2203 or any 1959, the sounds people are often looking for are obtained past that 100w mark.

And this is why, in my view, the captors just aren't a loadbox for a 100w head.

If you had an amp that was all preamp distortion and a really good master volume, there would be no point in having a Captor in the first place, other than if you wanted a really good DI with the Captor X.

AmyTwonotes

tekbow said:

AmyTwonotes said:

Hi @nero1701,

Thanks for the tag! We have a handy article below that may help:
https://helpdesk.two-notes.com/portal/en/kb/articles/can-i-use-an-amplifier-more-powerful-than-the-rated-power-of-a-torpedo-product

We appreciate some users may want to drive their power-amp into saturation and agree you can get some killer results with this; however the manner in which power amplifiers are configured / designed between amp models differs greatly so there is no hard and fast rule as to where to set your power-amp. As such, if you are using a Captor / Captor X with an amp rated higher than 100W, please refer to our help desk article above. If you have any additional questions, please let me know!

Hi Amy, I love Two-Notes stuff, I own a Reload, CABM+ and a ton of virtual cabs.

But there would appear to be a hard and fast rule which is that typically, the rating of an amp is for clean headroom, so don't exceed that. for amps that use power-amp breakup or compression as a component of the sound, like a JCM800 2203 or any 1959, the sounds people are often looking for are obtained past that 100w mark.

And this is why, in my view, the captors just aren't a loadbox for a 100w head.

If you had an amp that was all preamp distortion and a really good master volume, there would be no point in having a Captor in the first place, other than if you wanted a really good DI with the Captor X.

Hi @tekbow,

That's great to hear! We appreciate the feedback and will relay back to the team for future considerations!

fretmeister

Marshall really really need to bring back the Powerbrake.