attenuators we like?

StuartMac290

The only one I've ever been really satisfied with is the Tone King Ironman

Catthan

What about the new Fryette Power Station unit that's also a power amp, dummy load and attenuator AFAIK?

That looks interesting for me to get tho I don't need one.. 

crunchman

I've got a 50W Minimass (which I might be willing to sell if anyone wants it) but it is amp dependent.  It worked really well with my old Hot Rod Deluxe but it really didn't sound good with one or two other amps.

As others have said, it was best used to tame the amp a bit live.  When taking it down to bedroom levels it didn't sound great.  I think that's true of most attenuators though.  If you take 3dB off they can all sound pretty good.  Most of them can probably sound good with 6 or 8dB off with the right amp.  Beyond that the tone does seem to suffer.

I think there is a better option though.  I got Jesse to fit power scaling to my Lazy J, and that sounds much much better than the attenuator.  I know it's not always an option on higher powered amps but if you have the option then get power scaling fitted to your amp.  It's much better than the attenuator.  It will probably work out cheaper than some of the higher priced attenuators, and it's makes setting up when you are playing out that little bit simpler.

stickyfiddle

ICBM said:

Wazmeister said:

I differ from ICBM here in that I REALLY liked my Dr Z Brakelite. In fact, im not using it at the moment but hang on to it just in case.

I maybe didn't give it a fair test - it was mounted in the back of a Tweed Deluxe copy and I didn't try it with anything else. But it went... full - very slightly quieter - very slightly quieter - a lot quieter and dead-sounding - off. Not much use at all really.

It also seemed very overpriced considering the extremely low component count and complexity, which totally put me off it and makes it difficult to justify trying with any other amp. It would maybe be more impressive at half the price. (In my opinion.)

I would agree with that assessment, but liked it, as what I wanted was "very slightly quieter" for gigging and nothing else

stickyfiddle

ICBM said:

Wazmeister said:

I differ from ICBM here in that I REALLY liked my Dr Z Brakelite. In fact, im not using it at the moment but hang on to it just in case.

I maybe didn't give it a fair test - it was mounted in the back of a Tweed Deluxe copy and I didn't try it with anything else. But it went... full - very slightly quieter - very slightly quieter - a lot quieter and dead-sounding - off. Not much use at all really.

It also seemed very overpriced considering the extremely low component count and complexity, which totally put me off it and makes it difficult to justify trying with any other amp. It would maybe be more impressive at half the price. (In my opinion.)

I would agree with that assessment, but liked it, as what I wanted was "very slightly quieter" for gigging and nothing else

xscaramanga

This seems a question worth asking in this thread (Sorry to bother you, Mr @ICBM, but you seem to be the resident expert):

I want to record my AC30 using a dummy load (and cab sims). Obviously the Motherload will handle it fine, but I'm curious to compare with the Minimass and see if there's a difference in tone. Will the Minimass cope with the AC30 on full blast? The Minimass is rated at 50 watts, but I'm worried the AC30 could peak at more than that.

hywelg

ICBM said:

However I would be wary of buying a new Hotplate at all now, since there have been problems with the later ones, and their warranty support is beyond hopeless.

Warranty support is non-existent, they are out of production and the company has closed down (under a bit of a cloud too!) That said I have had two and no problems with either.

I've also had a DrZ AirBrake and whilst it worked well with my Fendery style 6L6 (EZG, Redplate BV, D clone) amps it was no better than the Hotplate and as I didn't need two I sold it. I should have tried it with my Ceriatone DZ30 just to compare, the HP is poor with that, but I've never needed it since the amp has LP Powerscaling.

ICBM

stickyfiddle said:

I would agree with that assessment, but liked it, as what I wanted was "very slightly quieter" for gigging and nothing else

Certainly, but you could get exactly that result with a couple of resistors in a box for around £20. (OK, maybe £50 if you wanted to make it switchable and you wanted a nice box.)

I understand the pricing of high-power-rated, complex attenuators - the components and the assembly just cost a fair amount - but this one just strikes me as trading on the name of the amps and the full-size Airbrake. There's nothing in it that justifies even close to £180, or whatever they are now.

(In my opinion.)

Cirrus

jonnyscaramanga said:

Will the Minimass cope with the AC30 on full blast? The Minimass is rated at 50 watts, but I'm worried the AC30 could peak at more than that.

I'm not ICBM, but I suspect it'd be fine - the AC30 does put out more than its rated 30 watts cranked, but the limiting factor is the amount of power it has available. The cathode bias and voltage sag when it's running flat out (I suspect!) prevent it from reaching the kind of over-spec power output that say an old marshall might give you - eg 80+ watts from a 50 watt amp.

The fact that blues are rated at 15 watts (though some believe they should be rated around 20 ish) and an AC30 can go a while without blowing a pair of those also makes me think you'd be fine with a 50 watt load.

Sassafras

I was lent a DrZ Airbrake which I used on my Deluxe Reverb and I thought it sounded better at very low volume than most other attenuators I'd used.

Obviously nothing's going to sound as good as a loud amp but I managed to get some quite convincing recordings at low level with it retaining good dynamics which other attenuators tend to lose.

ICBM

Cirrus said:

jonnyscaramanga said:

Will the Minimass cope with the AC30 on full blast? The Minimass is rated at 50 watts, but I'm worried the AC30 could peak at more than that.

I'm not ICBM, but I suspect it'd be fine - the AC30 does put out more than its rated 30 watts cranked, but the limiting factor is the amount of power it has available. The cathode bias and voltage sag when it's running flat out (I suspect!) prevent it from reaching the kind of over-spec power output that say an old marshall might give you - eg 80+ watts from a 50 watt amp.

The fact that blues are rated at 15 watts (though some believe they should be rated around 20 ish) and an AC30 can go a while without blowing a pair of those also makes me think you'd be fine with a 50 watt load.

I probably wouldn't risk it, if you're going to attenuate from full power down to low levels - direct quote from Weber's website:

"If you are going to dime your amp out and attenuate it down to very quiet volumes then we recommend using an attenuator that is rated for twice the power of your amp's rated output.

If you are simply going to dial an amp up to where it starts to breakup in the clean channel and then knock it down a few dB so the club owner and the sound man are happy, then using a 50 watt attenuator for a 50 watt amp will be ok."

Bear in mind that "half volume" perceptively means the attenuator is absorbing at least 3/4 of the amp's power, probably more... 3/4 is for a 6dB reduction - half volume is usually taken as a 10dB reduction, at which point the attenuator is absorbing 90% of the power.

The AC30 can put out around 45W fully cranked, some a bit more. The speakers will handle it, just - but their 15W rating is very conservative even by Celestion's normal standards.

xscaramanga

Thanks for the responses @Cirrus and @ICBM. I really want to try this, so I'm going to email Weber (who will almost certainly say no for liability reasons, I guess). Will report back.

Misty

I use the Dr Z Airbrake, which IMO works extremely well with my Dr Z amps. I've also used it with my old Deluxe Reverb, and was less pleased with the result, but I think that's more to do with the way those amps break up than the attenuator itself. Anyway, I'm never without the Airbrake.

siraxeman

I thought about 10w was the max power you could squeeze from an EL84 ? so x4 = 40 w  ?? Course I know zip about electronics lol. The AC30 is rated I believe at 33RMS...but if guys like ICBM say 40w ish who am I to argue. They knows their onions they does.

ecc83

siraxeman said:

I thought about 10w was the max power you could squeeze from an EL84 ? so x4 = 40 w  ?? Course I know zip about electronics lol. The AC30 is rated I believe at 33RMS...but if guys like ICBM say 40w ish who am I to argue. They knows their onions they does.

At its paper ratings yes! (actually it is more like 6W if you stay at the max Pa of 12W) but historically guitar amp mnfctrs have abused valves mercilessly. It is not uncommon to find EL84s running at 15W and even more! Plus the HT is sometimes well above ratings.

You could in theory get 40watts from just TWO 84s but I don't know if anyone ever has. I do know you can get 100W from a pair of EL34s with fixed bias and without actually exceeding any ratings but since I know of no guitar amp that claims this on the market I can only conclude they sound ***t when so hardly pressed?!!

Oh! And there is NO SUCH THING as bloody rms WATTS!

Dave.

ICBM

It depends on how you run them and how you measure it . There's a difference between rated power (which is - or should be - clean) and maximum distorted power.

The AC30 is 33W (or thereabouts) clean and around 45W fully distorted (actual electrical power output). That's fairly low for a 33W amp - in theory, an amp can put out up to double its clean power when fully distorted, although in practice that's difficult to achieve, and somewhere between 50% more and 75% more is normal. But some - which are under-rated even clean, eg an old Marshall 100-watter, which can be up to 130 or even 140W clean sometimes - can put out over double the supposedly rated power.

It's further confused by the speaker manufacturers too - Celestion rate theirs roughly for *an amp of the rated power*, ie a 30W Celestion should be OK with a 30W amp, even though the amp will put out considerably more than that when distorted. Others rate for the true electrical power, ie you need a 60W speaker with a 30W amp. Some others are somewhere between the two…

It's the same with attenuators - eg a Marshall Powerbrake is rated for "100W"... but that means a 100W Marshall Super Lead at full crank, ie at least 200W, and they are safe with that. Others like the Webers are rated for the true electrical input power, although at least Weber are totally open about it. But you need to know which it is, or if you don't then apply the Weber rule!

It's very important to remember that if you burn out the attenuator the amp will then suddenly see no load at full output power, and that's very likely to blow something - valves and fuses if you're lucky.

xscaramanga

In case anyone cares, I got a response from CJ Sutton at Weber. It reads:

the 50w minimass is perfect for the AC30.  it can be used as a dummy load.  

Game on! There are a lot of good reviews by people using the MiniMass with the AC30 online, so I'm looking forward to trying it.

shaunm

Other than the marshall power break is there any attenuators you would suggest for the Plexi marshalls?

ICBM

shaunm said:

Other than the marshall power break is there any attenuators you would suggest for the Plexi marshalls?

The Alex and the Motherload both have a good reputation with Marshall owners I know who have them.

IvisonGuitars

I had a Dr Z Brakelite to tame the Lazy J40 I had and it was brilliant, like all attenuators it wasn't brilliant sounding when taking the amp down to bedroom levels but for just taking a bit of the headroom out of the equation and allowing the amp to break up at usable levels, it was fantastic.