Loadbox for silent recording and practice

Duppy03

Is there such a thing as a load box that has the following features:
- output for silent recording
- Headphone output
- Aux in

richalderandash

Check the Two Notes range.  I know the Reload does the first two; don't think it has the latter.  There's also the Live and VB101, amongst others.

ecc83

By "Aux in" I take it you mean an input that can take another source such as backing track to mix with the attenuated guitar signal?  Such a facility would mean active devices in the load box and attendant power supplies (or batteries..Ugh!) That is going to make the whole thing much more expensive.

Just a thought? If the final aim is some form of recording you could just get a basic power soak/LB and a small USB mixer. I have just bought a Soundcraft Notebook 8FX for my son and it works a treat. 24 bit recording, a VAST improvement on the noisy, 16 bit early USB mixers.

Dave.

octatonic

Check out this:

https://www.uaudio.com/hardware/ox.html

I don't think you will get the Aux in.

Duppy03

I have a Vox AV30, which I must admit is greta and does everything I need. But was considering buying back my old Fender Supe Champ II from a friend and wondered if I did, could I find a way for it to have all the functionality the Vox AV offers. But it doesn't look like there's an all in one solution.

I love the OX but its the price of a high end amp in itself. The Notebook approach isn't a bad solution.

For that approach what Power Soak would you recommend?

normula1

If you can handle a soldering iron the tube-town kits are great.

ecc83

Duppy03 said:

I have a Vox AV30, which I must admit is greta and does everything I need. But was considering buying back my old Fender Supe Champ II from a friend and wondered if I did, could I find a way for it to have all the functionality the Vox AV offers. But it doesn't look like there's an all in one solution.

I love the OX but its the price of a high end amp in itself. The Notebook approach isn't a bad solution.

For that approach what Power Soak would you recommend?

ICBM is your man for matching amps to power soaks!

As you might be going for a DIY solution include a 1:1 audio transformer in the line out feed. This gives 'galvanic' isolation and, in conjunction with an Earth Lift switch eliminates bothersome hum loops. The output would also be balanced, a very desirable feature.

Dave.

ICBM

The difficult bit appears to be getting an Aux In function - there are lots of load boxes with speaker emulated direct outs and many with headphone sockets, but I don't know of one - even of the dummy load/re-amp type - that has a non-emulated Aux In so you can mix a clean signal into the headphones. It looks like your only solution is to get a standard load box with a headphone out, and a headphone mixer.

I never actually tried attenuating my Super Champs when I had them, but since it's a standard Fender 8-ohm output (with high negative feedback, for the technically-minded!) it should probably not be very fussy about attenuators. You need a minimum power rating of about 35W if you're planning to drive it hard, but most commercial load boxes will handle at least that with no problem.

If the Super Champ is stock you will need to replace the daft hardwired speaker connection with a jack and plug, but luckily the hole in the amp is in the right place! Since it was obviously designed for it originally and then an accountant decided they needed to save about a dollar...