Is an attenuator an electrical load?

[Bfeeney]

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?

http://guitarprojects.weebly.com/diy-attenuator.html

 

[Gtrjunior]

Good question. And I’m sorry I don’t have a good answer for you.
Hopefully somebody here knows as I’d like to try my hand at building one too.

 

[Top-L]

No, I don't think an attenuator is a load. When you had an old Hotplate, you still needed to attach a cabinet.

 

[Artie]

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.

 

[JMP/HBE]

No, 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.

 

[Gtrjunior]

Can anybody speak to question of the impedance setting from the op?

 

[JMP/HBE]

Can anybody speak to question of the impedance setting from the op?

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.

 

[Gtrjunior]

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.

Maybe if you tried clicking the link he provided instead of specializing in being an internet jerk...

You’re also not very good at getting along with others on the internet either it seems...

 

[Artie]

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.

 

[Gtrjunior]

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.

Now THATS a helpful response.
Thank you.

@JMP/HBE

Take some notes bro

 

[JMP/HBE]

Maybe if you tried clicking the link he provided instead of specializing in being an internet jerk...

You’re also not very good at getting along with others on the internet either it seems...

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.

 

[Gtrjunior]

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.

The link was there from the beginning brah....
Just because you missed it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there

 

[JMP/HBE]

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.

 

[Bfeeney]

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.

 

[Artie]

Yur welcome. Just remember to match the L-pad to the ultimate load that you select.

And man, I miss those Bahama Mama's from Schmidt's in German Village. :beerchug:

 

[Bfeeney]

And man, I miss those Bahama Mama's from Schmidt's in German Village. :beerchug:

Since the pandemic hit and stores were closed for inside business, Schmidt's had a food truck run around. On Saturday's they park at the Ace Hardware I work at and bring in a good amount of business. I stopped at the truck one day to get dinner for the family, 4 brats and 6 creme puffs, $70! I heard the people in line 6'+ away whispering about it. It was good.

 

[Artie]

You gotta try their German potato salad too, if you get a chance. I lived in Columbus for almost 30 years.

 

[PFDarkside]

You gotta try their German potato salad too, if you get a chance. I lived in Columbus for almost 30 years.

I’ve got to ask, what’s German potato salad? (Is it basically white vinegar and salt/pepper based?)

 

[Artie]

It's hard to describe. It's served warm and the potatoes are sliced rather than diced. And I think you're right about it being vinegar based, and it has bacon. You almost have to look up the recipe. There's one that comes in a can that's ok, when you don't have a good German restaurant around.

 

[Gtrjunior]

it uses sliced red potatoes and onion in a dressing similar to Italian salad dressing. Ive seen it with bacon bits and without.