I love a 5E3, but they're LOUD for home use, especially with my preferred Celestion Blue.
What's the best way to quieten it down for home use? Anyone with experience?
Attenuator?Bit of a PITA reaching around the back but...
Best one for 5E3?
@ICBM mentioned Dr Z Brake Lite is good, but they're expensive for what they are.Master Volume?Seems like a common mod. How does it work? Does it promote preamp distortion rather than power amp? Sound good?
Power scaling?Increasingly popular. Bizarrely the Lazy J version only takes it down to 5/6 watts which is still too loud for bedroom use. One or two knob?
5F1I much prefer the 5E3 sound and want to use it for rehearsals and small gigs anyway.
Comments
Master volumes do work well in a 5E3, but you don't get the power supply sag and sponginess.
If you are after tv level 5E3 the best option IMO to get great tone at low volume is to run it into an inductive load and re-amp it with another amplifier. Something like a suhr load going into a magnum 44. The bonus is that you can use the setup with with most amps.
Edit: @Secret_Sam spotted my error. Thanks.
Amazingly - or not if you understand what it was designed to do - the much-maligned Drive channel on the Hotrod Deluxe will do it, with the right speaker. I once directly A/B’d a tweed Limited Edition one with a Jensen speaker and a boutique 5E3 copy with one, and the Hotrod could nail the 5E3 sound both louder and quieter than the 5E3. You do need to dial it in specifically to do that, which is different from how you normally would for the best clean sound - hence why I think the Drive is usually so derided - but I’ve always found it quite amusing that one of the most desirable amp sounds and one of the least desirable amp sounds are… the same .
To do ‘5E3 with Blue’ you would need an Alnico Cream, since the Blue won’t handle 40W.
If you want it really quiet you would need a Dr. Watson Lion Tamer in the FX loop as well.
"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
A slightly different train of thought:
I also love the 5E3 clean sound with volume on 3. That's still LOUD with a Celestion Blue.
I came across the video below of a 5F1 with a 12 inch WGS G12Q. To me it sounds similar-ish to 5E3 cleans and less Champy. Also sounds a bit alnico even though it's not. Love this tone, especially the neck pup from 1.25.
The G12Q also has the bonus of 96db, so much quieter than a Blue.
Maybe I should explore this route. I'd need a pedal for dirt of course.
Cue shouts of "just get a Victoria 5112"
Bandcamp
The 5112 is the polar opposite - very transparent, extremely responsive to guitars, pickups and playing dynamics. If I didn't know the amp circuit was identical I wouldn't believe they were the same at all... it's that big a difference. However, it's also loud for a 5W amp, if you're going to crank it - not that far off the 5E3 really.
"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
You can get somewhere near with some light compression in the loop, but it never induces the same grin.