I found a site that had instructions for a diy passive attenuator for an amp, so I built one. It works pretty good so far. It has a 'bright' switch which helps when the thing is turn down to <3. The directions said to get a pot that matched the speaker ohms. I'm running a 16ohm cabinet, so I got a 16ohm pot. My question is, is this attenuator considered a load? If it is, wouldn't my 16ohm cab + 16ohm att = 8ohms?
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Is an attenuator an electrical load?
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An attenuator is anything that "turns down" the signal. The volume control on your guitar is an attenuator. The "trick" is, your guitar generates about 1 millionth of a watt. So a 1/4 watt potentiometer is fine. Your amp generates much more. You can't use a potentiometer to attenuate a high power load like an amp. It requires big high power "load" resistors. For example, lets say you want to drop your 50 watt amp down to 1 watt. The load resistor will have to absorb about 49 watts. Think about how hot an old 50 watt light bulb gets. Same thing.
I'll elaborate tomorrow. It's late.
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Originally posted by Top-L View PostNo, I don't think an attenuator is a load. When you had an old Hotplate, you still needed to attach a cabinet.
Hotplate has a "load" setting as well as incremental attenuation.
Which weighs more a pound of feathers or a pound of lead ?
Answer : a pound is a pound.
For guitar amps attenuators can be a resistive or reactive load.
Attenuator market has gone overboard IMO with all kinds of over the top attenuators costing thousands of dollars.
Impedance matching can be confusing/tricky these days with all the gadgets.
For best results always match impedance correctly.Last edited by JMP/HBE; 08-31-2020, 07:36 AM.
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Originally posted by JMP/HBE View Post
Um well his device is homegrown with no pics/video/schematic. How would we know ?
Im not very good at curing cancer over the internet either.
YouÂ’re also not very good at getting along with others on the internet either it seems...Last edited by Gtrjunior; 08-31-2020, 09:37 AM.
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Somehow, I missed that link the first time. A properly connected L-Pad won't alter the impedance. That's its primary function. So, a 16-ohm l-pad, with 16-ohm speakers, will still be 16 ohms. Use an 8 ohm l-pad with 8 ohm speakers, and so on and so forth.
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Originally posted by ArtieToo View PostSomehow, I missed that link the first time. A properly connected L-Pad won't alter the impedance. That's its primary function. So, a 16-ohm l-pad, with 16-ohm speakers, will still be 16 ohms. Use an 8 ohm l-pad with 8 ohm speakers, and so on and so forth.
Thank you.
@JMP/HBE
Take some notes bro
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Originally posted by Gtrjunior View Post
Maybe if you tried clicking the link he provided instead of specializing in being an internet jerk...
YouÂ’re also not very good at getting along with others on the internet either it seems...
Seems you're the one with a problem.
There was no link when i posted. I sure as hell wouldn't hook up any of my gear to that crap.
If he smokes his PV its no concern to me. An L-pad with no ceramic load resistors is a great way to smoke a output transformer.
meh whatever
Not my monkey/not my circus.
I'll be making posts later feel free to get all pissy about those too.
Last edited by JMP/HBE; 08-31-2020, 12:47 PM.
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Originally posted by JMP/HBE View Post
Im not the one getting pissy like you dude.
Seems you're the one with a problem.
There was no link when i posted. I sure as hell wouldn't hook up any of my gear to that crap.
If he smokes his PV its no concern to me. An L-pad with no ceramic load resistors is a great way to smoke a output transformer.
meh whatever
Not my monkey/not my circus.
I'll be making posts later feel free to get all pissy about those too.
Just because you missed it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there
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This thread is helpful for anyone interested in smoking their amp.
Not much more.
Clickbait. My mistake was answering : is an electrical device really electrical ?
Tune in tomorrow when we ask the age old question : Water > is it really wet ?
And what about the yellow snow ?
This thread is about a load all right.
Think i'll go watch catfights on Jerry Springer.
Last edited by JMP/HBE; 08-31-2020, 01:21 PM.
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Thanks ArtieToo (calm down people. geez!). The question arose with my Blackstar HT5h. It has a 16ohm output jack and two 16ohm to make 8ohm jacks. I built a 412 cabinet with 16ohm speakers and wired it series/parallel to keep the 16ohms, with the idea that I'll make another 16ohm cabinet someday. In the meantime, I came across this schematic and decided to give it a try. I was just wondering if I plug it into the single 16ohm jack or one of the duel 16ohm since it would make 8ohms. Thanks everyone.LTD M-50 W/ AHB-1 Blackouts.
Thinline W/GFS Classic II
Soloist W/Duncan Detonator
LP W/GFS Crunchy Pats
Blackstar HT5-H.
Custom 112 cab W/G12 75T.
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