So, in theory, attenuators are a great thing. However, I've absolutely concluded that in practice;
- They can bugger amps up and don't aid their smooth running- I believe they stress the internals of amps and cause issues
- The sound is nowhere near as good and whatever you do you lose parts of the high and mids
- You can use certain drive pedals (e.g. Kingsley Page) as a sort of reactive load/attenuation of input signal (my terminology is probably wrong here) that actually works far better.
- Re 1 above, the natural thing to do is crank the amp and fully attenuate rather than do it subtly, which surely must cause more stress on valves and OTs etc?
I also want to understand precisely what the difference is between a reactive load and attenuation.
I'd appreciate the wisdom of our amp fiends (yes you
@icbm and others) regarding the points I've made.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Comments
Power scaling is more attractive as it can be a relatively inexpensive mod to an amp, I may add it to my tweed deluxe with the ampmaker vvr kit.
I suppose it depends on the sound you are after and amp you have in the first place.
Attenuators are a rabbit hole I have steered clear of I probably best not look into it further!
Sorry not really answering the questions.....
2. No, some attenuators do with some amps - some sound great with some amps. The difficulty sometimes is finding the right combination.
3. You might get a good, or great, sound but it's not at all the same as running the amp loud and attenuating. You may prefer it though...
4. Yes, true. The fact that you can run at full tilt all the time means that you're more likely to. That will definitely cause more stress than running it at lower volume, and will wear out the valves quicker - but is not a risk to a well-made OT.
The difference between a reactive load and attenuation is that a load does not feed some of the power directly to the cab - it produces a signal-level output which you then have to re-amplify with another power amp (valve or solid-state). This can also sound very good, but it's also not quite the same as attenuating.
Personally, I don't really like the sound of amps cranked to oblivion and then attenuated, even with combinations that work well - that makes them sound squashed and mushy, to me. I prefer getting the amp just up to the point where it starts to naturally overdrive rather than saturate completely, and I prefer master volume amps with attenuators so you can balance the power amp drive and final volume independently.
Also personally, I don't like power scaling. I've never heard an implementation that sounds as good as a well-designed master volume, and it doesn't produce the same power stage dynamics as attenuation either.
"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
So the valves will wear faster, other components like ceramic resistors may go faulty earlier. I used to run a Marshall Jubilee 100 on near full pelt into a home made load for gig'ing in the eighties. The valves needed changing a lot more often.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
It actually has an impedance curve closer to a real speaker than any other attenuator or load I know of.
"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
I think that if they're used sensibly they can sound perfectly decent. I like using mine anyway.
Personally I think that any amp has a volume where it just doesn't work well below. Which is usually around a neighbour bothering amount. Just where the speaker isn't moving enough and/or the internal components aren't working hard enough. Maybe your ears not being wobbled enough. At that point you're probably as well using headphones or something.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
Most of the old resistive loads just don't work well for what most guitarists want, volumes at home levels.
@Gassage Have you tried the Fryette Power Station?
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Only thing to watch out for is the power station can put out a lot more power than a lot of amps, so you need to watch the speaker power.
I assume you mean nowhere near as good as the sound of the unattenuated amp being run at full chat, which is probably true but a moot point, surely? If it were an option to just run the amp balls to the wall all the time we wouldn't be discussing attenuators.
I used to have a Motherload and now I have a Two Notes Captor that I use as a load box, then reamp with a Matrix GT800FX power amp (with FX between the two if I fancy it). Neither of them sounds as good as the amp screaming, no. Physics and the Fletcher-Munsen curve make that impossible. But they both sound a lot better than the amp quietly without the attenuator, and for certain purposes I prefer them to modellers and definitely to clean amps with pedals.
No, sorry, as good as simply turning the thing down via the vol knob!
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
what to run a plexi without waking the kids? Powerstation or similar
what to gig a jrm45 wound up to crunch with a quiet band? Powerbrake or similar
The only alternative to the above is pedals or modellers which is what I do these days but if you love your non MV valve amps and have volume restrictions you have to use something
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