Attenuators/What works?

[Kid Metric]

I have a Koch Studiotone for home use only, and it is such a brute with volume.
Loudest 20 watts I have ever heard!
I can't past 2 without excessive volume.
Had any success with attenuators?

[mdrs]

No.

Some are better than others. In my experience, they all alter your amp's tone. Investing in a fine amp, and then not hearing it's tone drives me nuts!

The Weber is supposed to be really good, although it's one I've not tried. The THD is pretty good. The Marshall is, well, it's on a shelf not being used, in my basement!!

Have you tried a clean OD/boost pedal, such as The Klon, in front of your amp? In some amps you can keep the volume down, and push the amp into some sweet overdriven tone without going deaf. I've found The Klon to be an amazing pedal for this purpose.

[tom]

i have the thd and weber. both affect the sound when used at high levels. both work well for me at lower settings. i actually enjoy what they do at lower levels a lot. i am also using a low power amp, 15-20 watts.

[Pietro]

I have a THD, it's GREAT with my Bassman, I prefer it to running straight even when I can turn up. I have an Air Brake and it lives on my Z, but only because I am volume-restricted on stage at my church. It does okay but does affect tone just a little bit badly imho.

[FFOGG]

I had the Weber I thought it compresed my sound too much.,.went to a Mesa LSS on 5 watt setting w/OCD out front also my Duende with an Eternity out front works also only 18 watts

[mdrs]

I had the Weber I thought it compresed my sound too much.,.went to a Mesa LSS on 5 watt setting w/OCD out front also my Duende with an Eternity out front works also only 18 watts

Good suggestion!!

I have an old Blackface Champ in my den. I put a Klon (and have used a Fulltone OCD) in front of it. And, I can do ZZ Top and not wake anyone up. It's really pretty cool!

[jmdeno]

I have a Weber PowerMass I bought for my HC30 (when 15 watts was still just way too loud). It worked very well, but I couldn't get used to the scratchy pot. (literally....not sonically....the pot felt like you were forcing it to turn).

Aside from that, having the line out/tone stack was pretty cool, but I just never used it that much. And it DEFINITELY didn't sound like the same tone. I didn't mind it that much, but it WAS different.

needless to say, that's a in the bunch going for sale this week. :)

My new Ulbrick has a wattage knob built into the master. maybe someone can explain it better, because everytime it was described to me, I said "oh it's like a built-in attenuator", and they said "No, it regulates the wattage going to the speaker cabs..."

I'm not an electronics guy, btw... :-)

J

[Casper]

I have been researching this too. I have priced them THD 8ohm for about 350.00 all the way up to the Bad cat "Leash" in the 5-600 range. I have heard from a few sources that attenuators are bad for transformers, kinda like blowing up a balloon..
I am not an electronics person, has anybody else heard this?
I hear the THD has eq switches and the Z Airbrake isn't transparent.

I now own a Boogie DC-5 112 combo that is 50 LOUD watts and am worried about stage volume. I haven't put it on the road yet for this reason. It would be nice to "Harness" the power a bit so I can let the amp breathe, but I don't want anything to color the sound...or am I just going to have to EQ around the attenuator??
Thoughts are welcome..

[tom]

i think everyone needs to get past this"color the sound" thing. when something is at, for sake of argument, 104db(really loud), the same exact thing played at 92 db is not going to sound or feel the same. do it with your stereo. loud and soft do not sound the same. if you need to play softer you have several choices. pick the one that sounds best for you. for my use, the atten works great and i'm not doing a radical amount of reduction. if anyone expects to turn a fire breathing 100 watter into a bedroom amp they will be disappointed no matter how they get there. imho

[Pietro]

The THD products definitely color the sound...

...for the better imho.

The Air Brake does less imho... but I'm not so crazy about it so far... I only use it cause I have to.

[AndyT]

As Tom says, even if the tone stayed exactly the same you have changed the dynamics of your sound with an attenuator. Much of the sound we love comes from the speaker itself breaking up reacting to the increased volume. Lowering the volume will clean up most of the speaker distortion, obviously altering the sound. Also, don't be afraid to reset you tone controls when your are using the attenuator. :)

[Pietro]

As Tom says, even if the tone stayed exactly the same you have changed the dynamics of your sound with an attenuator. Much of the sound we love comes from the speaker itself breaking up reacting to the increased volume. Lowering the volume will clean up most of the speaker distortion, obviously altering the sound. Also, don't be afraid to reset you tone controls when your are using the attenuator. :)

Yeah, the definite "problem" with attenuators is that they tend to remove "over-worked" speakers from the equation. I wonder if that's not the whole difference. In any case, it is the unfortunate price I pay for a reasonable stage volume.

[Casper]

I agree with this all. Tom, you and Andy are right, if I can eq and get the level to acceptable stage levels, I will be happy I'm sure. I guess I was just looking for transparency, much like a true bypass..in the end, its all about my ears and the tone I live with..sorry for the confusion..

[TonyG]

I looked at attenuators and found the price a bit rich. I also looked at low wattage amps like the Carr Mercury and Cornford Carrera and found them ridiculously expensive. Then I saw a review of a 5 watt amp produced by a fairly new British firm called Blackstar. I paid about the same price for this little 5 watt combo (it also comes as a head with or without cab) as I would have done for a THD attenuator and it is fantastic. I don't know how easy they are to get hold of in the USA but if you get the chance have a look at the HT-5. Link below:

http://www.blackstaramps.co.uk/products/ht-5/index.html

[tom]

been reading about that one. haven't seen them here yet. worth checking out. how does it do in the middle ground between real clean and higher gain?

[TonyG]

I think it does fine in the "just on the edge" region. A nice touch is the ISF knob (Infinite Shape Feature) which allows tone adjustment from a "US sound" to a more "Brit sound". It has two channels, a footswitch for channel switching an effects loop and more than enough EQ facility. The clean headroom is limited as you would expect and it lacks reverb but at this sort of price it offers a great solution to achieving quality bedroom/recording tones. I'd rather drive valves at 5 watts than attenuate a gigging amp.

[TonyG]

It appears that Guitar Centre are the California dealers and the combo sell for $399.99.

[jmdeno]

hey, I should've clarified my previous post. I think I actually may have a problem with my Weber. It's not just the typical, running the amp volume low, tone degradation. It's more like a not letting any of lows thru from my board. I notice this even when bypassed, but the weber has a high-low range switch and the high range is definitely more full-bodied, but I almost think there are two many options on the attenuator for me. I just need a knob. lol

I've matched the levels as best I could, and took the unit in and out, and It just sounds bad to me. I've had an engineer a/b it with a hotplate, and he said they sounded good. dissimilar in sound, but I can definitely notice a frequency not getting thru the same, when even bypassed. so I guess I really should've stated that earlier. sorry guys.

think it's worth sending back to have a look at, or am I just missing something else?

J

[tom]

if it doesn't sound right bypassed, it may have a problem. with it out of the path completely all sounds right?

[jmdeno]

if it doesn't sound right bypassed, it may have a problem. with it out of the path completely all sounds right?

Yes. Completely out of the path it sounds great. In the the path but bypassed, the attenuation is def bypassed but it seems to lose a lot of the bottom end of the guitar. Much more noticable with any kind of pedal drive.

[tom]

doesn't sound right to me. i would email weber. they're not super fast at response, but you should get an answer.