Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

[jeremy]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

Power attenuators are only good at very low attenuation settings. Any more attenuation, the tone becomes compressed crap.

Sadly, for most, even low attenuation is too loud. Also, power attenuators are not an advanced rig concept; they're actually basic.

The best solution, by far, for pure cranked amp tone, at any volume, without:

- attenuator mush
- thin cranked preamp / low master volume setting tone
- distortion box into quiet amp for more gain buzzy bee tone
etc...

is slaving. This is an advanced rig concept.

That means loading down your amp with a dummy load, tapping the signal off the amp... and from there, re-amping it.

slaving can be great but thats waaay too much crap for me to bring to a gig

[Cynical]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

slaving can be great but thats waaay too much crap for me to bring to a gig

Freyette Power Station is the load + reamp in one convenient box.

[jeremy]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

i dont even like bringing the attenuator ive pared down my rig so its a one trip carry 95% of the time. if i have to haul pa or something like that and am already going to make ten trips, whats one more, but that doesnt happen very often.

[Blille]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

There’s also the “attenuating” speakers from Eminence. I’m very happy with my Maverick.

[jeremy]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

i have a maverick too, the attenuation part is very good. its a good sounding speaker but i wish there were other options besides one american and one british version.

[Blille]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

I agree. But at least you have one of each

[jeremy]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

yep! unfortunately, the maverick got pulled for a better sounding speaker without the attenuator option. ill put it in another amp, just not the one that it was in. got replaced by a g12h-30 55hz by the way

[formula73]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

I run a Weber Mass 100 on my Metaltronix and it’s a prt of my sound, now. I can’t get what I want without it.

[FuseG4]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

I use that Eminence speaker with the attenuator knob on it with my supersonic 22. Does take off a little top end and dynamics at full attenuation but it's an articulate speaker to begin with so it ends up sounding really good though most of the dial
They stopped making them I guess.
I've used it in 40w Marshall and was not enough to bring it down to apartment levels but did sound good.

I do sometimes want to replace the reignmaker speaker though because while it does what it's supposed to, I think there are many speakers that have overall better tone and more character

[NoOnesFang13]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANFiuuY55Wk heres a good video of the different kinds and comparing them

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

I think that the better choice is a good small watt amp.

Especially since they often cost less too lol..

[Demanic]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

I've been running my Picovalve through my 2x12 at 5 watts with the master volume on 4-5 for the last few weeks. Plenty of volume and tone for practice. Or recording.

Sent from my Alcatel_5044C using Tapatalk

[ehdwuld]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

Can you put a volume pedal or something in the effects loop
And lower the volume that way?

Instead of a power soak or attenuation

[Mincer]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

Can you put a volume pedal or something in the effects loop
And lower the volume that way?

Instead of a power soak or attenuation

I would think the power section has a lot to do with the overall tone of the amp. So you'd just want to turn the volume down on the way to the speaker. However, there are *always* tradeoffs when you do this.

[formula73]

Re: Attenuators & power soaks.. gain without the pain

Can you put a volume pedal or something in the effects loop
And lower the volume that way?

Instead of a power soak or attenuation

Only if you want a lot of hiss and hum. Driving the power amp hard to reproduce a weak preamp signal sucks.