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If that's not what you want to do, a basic L-Pad attenuator will be fine, or one of the cheap Harley Benton ones. If you're not overdriving the amp it's much less critical to find the 'right' one.
"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
http://www.wilmslow-audio.co.uk/l-pad-attenuator-at-62sk---19mm-thread-1840-p.asp
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/57632/
The solution is to run the amp at one impedance setting below that of the Hotplate, eg 8 ohms for a 16-ohm Hotplate.
In fact, for a Deluxe Reverb a 16-ohm Hotplate would be ideal rather than 8, because a DR has a mismatched OT ratio and its real output impedance is closer to 16 than 8 ohms - and Fender amps don't mind a low mismatch anyway.
"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
The '100W' L-Pads that are normally available are not capable of dissipating 100W of electrical power - they're rated for the system power in a 'music' application (clean signal with peaks several times higher than the average), and as far as I understand they were originally intended as treble or midrange attenuators, so they're only expected to handle a fraction of that power. Having looked at the physical size of them I would guess the electrical power rating is well under 50W, and maybe as low as 25W. What I should really do is test one to destruction and find out where it fails…
A 30W amp could be putting out a lot more than 30W of electrical power too - fully overdriven, up to about 50W is possible. You also aren't only turning 25% into heat - at only 3dB attenuation, which is about the minimum useful even for live use, 50% of the amp's power is going into the attenuator… at 6dB it's 75%. So you have little to no safety margin at all, and quite possibly the other way round.
But L-Pads actually do give quite a safe loading on the OT, in fact - being purely resistive there are no problems with changing impedance with frequency, or voltage/current phase shifts - as long as you don't burn it out.
Don't be fooled by the marketing hype about the Webers either - they're mostly resistive, the speaker coil only acts as a small part of the load and isn't very important. I haven't been very impressed by the build quality of the ones I've seen either, although the bigger models are better.
"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
Further info: I'd already tried a Palmer att'r which worked well, also peeked inside to see some neat well built gubbins inside- a stark contrast to the garage quality build of the P&P which looked like an experimental lash up! - best thing I did for it was to recycle it ! (they're not cheap either!)
I'm undecided now whether to build my homebrewed attenuator into the BB, or just carry on using drive pedals at the front of this very solid/simple valve amp, the driven sound is different but both are acceptable drive sounds, - the biggest difference I guess is the simplicity of power-valve drive, it's fun just to plug a guitar straight into the amp and use the guitar dynamics/volume to bring in the drive. But if you need pedals for wah/tuners/delay/chorus etc then a couple of extra pedals for overdrive are ok for gigging!
It's been an interesting experiment!
https://www.amazon.com/KLD-AMPS-PB-1-ATTENUATOR-CRANKED/dp/B009DUH4E8
I fitted the pad in a computer PSU enclosure so I could use a fan if needed to cool it. Never felt the need for it.
For maybe £20 in parts and 5mins of drilling/soldering, can't complain.