Too much too old - midlife crisis purchase.

Supportact

Devil#20 said:

GoFish said:

Thanks for the support / enabling fellas

i'll eventually downsize to a more sensible amp

No. Don't do that. 

Agreed. In fact, you could look for a second one and run them in stereo. Just a thought. 

roberty

ICBM said:

Running an 8-ohm load from a Twin is fine. It only might not be if you’re absolutely cranking it fully into distortion, and even then it probably would be. If it’s still worrying you, just remove either the inner or outer pair of 6L6s - that will drop the power to half and double the output impedance.

That's interesting. I have the 16ohm Captor X and was thinking of getting an Ampeg V-4B to record with, but the Ampeg has no 16ohm out. Could you mismatch these safely do you think?

I have a 1974 Fender Pro Reverb which is 4ohm out, same as the Twin. Could you also safely mismatch a Pro Reverb with an 8ohm load box?

sw67

I have a 74 Twin - used mostly in the house and it sounds great at lower volume. I have done a few gigs where I am able to park at the door. I def like big amps 

sweepy

roberty said:

ICBM said:

Running an 8-ohm load from a Twin is fine. It only might not be if you’re absolutely cranking it fully into distortion, and even then it probably would be. If it’s still worrying you, just remove either the inner or outer pair of 6L6s - that will drop the power to half and double the output impedance.

That's interesting. I have the 16ohm Captor X and was thinking of getting an Ampeg V-4B to record with, but the Ampeg has no 16ohm out. Could you mismatch these safely do you think?

I have a 1974 Fender Pro Reverb which is 4ohm out, same as the Twin. Could you also safely mismatch a Pro Reverb with an 8ohm load box?

That’s why I bought an 8 Ohm Captor  X, Two Notes told me that it would cope with all 3 common loads 4 8 and 16 

ICBM

You can normally safely mismatch a valve amp by a factor of 2:1 in either direction - there are a few exceptions, but rare. Also, unless the amp is turned up a long way - usually not unless its power stage is overdriven - then accurate matching doesn’t really matter much at all and a 2:1 mismatch is definitely safe.

hollywoodrox

Congratulations on your new amp 

Danny1969 on here manufactures a marvellous device that attenuates the output using sone sort of witchcraft  by plugging it into the fx loop I think . Anyway it seems a very clever small  gadget 
for a bargain price . 

Apparently it’s not an attenuator more of a volume control ,someone more clever can explain.

ElectricXII

ICBM said:

You can normally safely mismatch a valve amp by a factor of 2:1 in either direction - there are a few exceptions, but rare. Also, unless the amp is turned up a long way - usually not unless its power stage is overdriven - then accurate matching doesn’t really matter much at all and a 2:1 mismatch is definitely safe.

That's interesting. My new-to-me Marshall 1962 was switched to 16 ohms when I got it, although the factory setting is 8 ohms to match the two 16 ohm Celestions. An internet search led me to a number of instances where people run the amp at 16 ohms despite the mismatch, claiming it sounds "more alive". I've just got the chassis back from Marshall who cured a persistent buzzing noise for me (filter caps), and it came back set to 8 ohms.

I actually gigged it a couple of weeks ago with the impedance set at 16 ohms, because I hadn't checked, and it sounded and worked fine. 

hywelg

hollywoodrox said:

Congratulations on your new amp 

Danny1969 on here manufactures a marvellous device that attenuates the output using sone sort of witchcraft  by plugging it into the fx loop I think . Anyway it seems a very clever small  gadget 
for a bargain price . 

Apparently it’s not an attenuator more of a volume control ,someone more clever can explain.

Don't think a normal 'Twin' has an FX loop. Later models like the Red Knob or Pro Tube did  have one

ICBM

hywelg said:

Don't think a normal 'Twin' has an FX loop. Later models like the Red Knob or Pro Tube did  have one

A 'normal' Twin doesn't have or need one. There's no point in a loop unless it's coming after the preamp overdrive, and a Twin doesn't have any.

If you want to crank a Twin at controllable volume, you need a power attenuator - the THD Hotplate works very well with one in my experience.