my dr. Z airbrake review

E

esandes

Well-known member
instead of having my amp at 0.1 volume while practicing, with the airbrake it can be played at 0.3 volume with the highest level of attenuation.

people can say it doesn't affect the tone with the attenuation and i would say it's because it doesn't do much attenuation to begin with.

i'm selling it as soon as i can.

2/10 for the dr. Z airbrake. bedroom level attenuation is not madison square garden level attenuation.
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

i dont think any attenuator will do bedroom volume except on a 5w amp thru an inefficient speaker. im a tube amp snob but if i wanted a bedroom amp for practicing, id get a little modeler
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

why can't an attenuator that is advertised to take 100W to 1W take, say, 2W down to at least 0.5W? it's a complete waste for the everyday guitarist.
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

You are in the same country as the guy who invented power scaling, so maybe you should give him a call. It would be a modification of your amp, but it's the closest thing you will ever get to unadulterated cranked tone at low levels.

http://www.londonpower.com/pscaling.htm
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

firebirdV said:
You are in the same country as the guy who invented power scaling, so maybe you should give him a call. It would be a modification of your amp, but it's the closest thing you will ever get to unadulterated cranked tone at low levels.

http://www.londonpower.com/pscaling.htm
Click to expand...

i heard this is a good solution but i'm not into gutting the amp up. i'll just find a rehearsal space that can tolerate high wattage just to get the damn tube tone.

it's 2012 and we can't get good tone out of tube amps at reasonable volume levels. wtf
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

I never use an attenuator, but there are a lot of videos and audio demos out there that use them and sound quite good. I wouldn't think you could use a 50w amp while your kids are asleep on the other side of the house even with the best attenuator out there - if you're trying to get, for instance, a cranked Marshall tone.

I used a Koch Loadbox with spectacular results for home playing on a 120w JSX and my 50watt 1987x plexi. I'm not familiar with the Airbrake, but you should check out the Koch.
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

UberMetalDood said:
I never use an attenuator, but there are a lot of videos and audio demos out there that use them and sound quite good. I wouldn't think you could use a 50w amp while your kids are asleep on the other side of the house even with the best attenuator out there - if you're trying to get, for instance, a cranked Marshall tone.

I used a Koch Loadbox with spectacular results for home playing on a 120w JSX and my 50watt 1987x plexi. I'm not familiar with the Airbrake, but you should check out the Koch.
Click to expand...

i have a 50W marshall and the airbrake does as lousy of a job with that as my 100W marshall.

i wished the still made that loadbox. apparently they went under.
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

Attenuators were not designed to make tube amps useable at bedroom level. The cold hard fact is that tube amps, no matter the wattage, are not designed, or even meant to be used in a bedroom situation, no matter how much some companies will say otherwise.

Attenuators were designed to knock a bit of volume off of a very loud amp. For example, like moving the volume on a marshall back from 4 to 3.5, MAYBE three. They don't sound good when knocking off 12 or more decibels, in my experience.

Tube amps are NOT meant for quite use.
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

speaker distortion and coloring is another aspect of tone, if you are not pushing air stuff will sound diff...
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

I almost bought an Airbrake for $200, then changed my mind, knowing I couldn't knock my volume monsters down to practice amp levels.

And that's where Vox Valvetronix stuff gives me what I want at whisper levels, as Jeremy mentioned.

I have one of the blue Valvetronix Tonelabs, and if I run it into a tube amp that has an FX return, I get the best of modeling tone and tube power. I got the Tonelab for $80 on Craigslist......less than half the price of an attenuator.
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

I have had the privilege of owning many loud ass marshalls (and other brands) over the years But have not had a suitable environment for cranking the **** out them for the past 10 years. I have spent thousands of dollars trying to get me reasonably close to my old mp2204, 1987, and 4010 (2205 combo) at a reasonable bedroom and home volume.

wampler plextortion through a little class 5 set clean and into a 1x12 kicks the living crap out of any modeller and pedal I have tried. And i have owned alot of modellers and some very expensive good pedals.. Wampler is a freaking genius.
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

Below is a link to the Dr Z Airbrake manual as well as the following excert:

"Attenuator: This is a rotary switch that selects the amount of attenuation. 0 position is true bypass. Positions 1-4 adds 1.8 dB of attenuation per click. Bedroom Level: A rheostat that will adjust the amp’s output from -7.2 dB down to -30 dB."

http://www.drzamps.com/Documents/Manuals/Airbrake.pdf

Each step of 1.8 dB isn't much attenuation and you probably won't notice it much. However, the bedroom level can attenuate up to 30 dB, which is very significant. If you are not noticing a major drop in volume on the bedroom setting with max attenuation, your Airbrake is faulty. Send it back to Dr. Z and have them take a look at it.

By the way, I've heard you can move the 3 clamps with the white wires on the rail, which affects the attenuation of the Attenuator knob. The farther you adjust them, the greater each step will be of dB's on the Attenuator knob.
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

All that to say, I agree with everdrone. Speaker break-up is key to the sound. I have the THD HotPlate, which is an awesome attenuator, but you still lose that bite & cut from the speaker. Another option is to use less efficient speakers. I have Vintage 30s which definitely don't help, but I do love how they sound so I put up with the volume.

everdrone said:
speaker distortion and coloring is another aspect of tone, if you are not pushing air stuff will sound diff...
Click to expand...
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

speed2dirt said:
All that to say, I agree with everdrone. Speaker break-up is key to the sound. I have the THD HotPlate, which is an awesome attenuator, but you still lose that bite & cut from the speaker. Another option is to use less efficient speakers. I have Vintage 30s which definitely don't help, but I do love how they sound so I put up with the volume.
Click to expand...

YOU DUDES NEED TO PLAY A WEBER ATTENUATOR, THEY ANSWER ALL THESE QUESTIONS

Begin quote:

fIAw6.jpg


Weber Attenuators utilize an actual speaker motor to apply a reactive load on the amp. The attenuators are unlike any other on the market, and provide a much more interactive, natural sound when in use. They affect the tone less than the resistor-based models.

Here are some facts to consider when using an attenuator. Attenuators do work. They are not the cause of transformer failures. An attenuator can only simulate two out of the four components that are involved when you crank up an amp. The four components are #1 preamp tube distortion, #2 power tube distortion, #3 speaker distortion and #4 the physical movement of air that your speakers produce at high volumes. So the two components missing are speaker distortion and the physical movement of air and these are huge components! So if you’re playing at moderate volumes and just want to tame the amp down to get a bit of power tube breakup then an attenuator is a great tool, but do not expect to be able to dime your amp and then use any attenuator on the market to get the exact same sound from your amp at whisper quiet volumes. You can't get there from here. You would be better off with a one watt amp.

So, now some answers. Catastrophic power tube failure will cause transformer and screen grid resistor failures. The reason you will read and hear horror stories from unknowledgeable attenuator users is because they do not understand how attenuators work and the stress they put on your tubes. If in fact, a player chooses to run his amp cranked all the way on and attenuate the volume down to a whisper, then in most cases power tubes will only go a few months. Power tubes will die in one of two ways. The first and most pleasant is by simply fading and dying. The second and more popular way is to go out in a blaze of glory which is what I referred to above as a catastrophic failure which can and most often will, take out screen grid resistors.

Tubes sound great when they are really working hard but the harder you work them the faster they wear out. If you understand this and either use the attenuator sparingly or change your tubes regularly then your amp will not suffer damage.

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.

I ran a Weber attenuator for years with a 5 watt amp and loved it. I think it was a 50 watt attenuator --- that doesn't mean what you probably think it means.

TL;DR - Weber
 
Re: my dr. Z airbrake review

i have a weber mass and i think it is the best sounding attenuator that ive tried and ive just about tried them all. mines 100w and i use it on everything from 12w to 85w

i still notice some tone suck at high levels of attenuation. even a 10w amp is too loud be be used in the bedroom at anything other than a clean volume. if you really want to get cranked tube amp sound at low volume, you need a low power amp, a good attenuator and very inefficient speakers. a v30 is gonna be loud with .5w going thru it
 
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