Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

[GuitarDoc]

Aside from using lower factor preamp tubes, is there any way to mod the amp to run lower wattage/less output?

This amp is only 30 watts, but sounds/performs more like 100 watts. It WAY outpowers my Marshall 50 watt, Bogner 40 watt, and even my Flextone lll 150 watt. It uses 2 EL84 or 2 6V6 power tubes (or a blend of the two types). I can only play it with the volume barely on (vol at 7:30) and it's nearly ear piercing. When it's cranked up louder the tone becomes incredible, but it's too loud to listen to.

I love everything about this little amp (looks, size, weight, tone, features, etc) except for the excess power so don't blow me off by telling me to get another lower watt amp. Besides, I already have a very nice 22 watter.

Please help me keep this amp. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Joaquin]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

You could get a baffle and put it in front of the speaker cabinet, sound guys will love you too.

other then that you could get an attenuator, or a hot plate.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

You could get a baffle and put it in front of the speaker cabinet, sound guys will love you too.

other then that you could get an attenuator, or a hot plate.

I tried a Weber Mass Lite attenuator but it sucks tone and I lose a lot of clarity with it (too distorted). The attenuator works great with my Marshall but for some reason I can't get it to give me a good tone with my Rebel.

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

What are you using for a cab? I found the Rebel 20 to be loud and loose through a 4x12, but right and tight through a 1x12.

 

[vinta9e]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

It might just be a naughty master volume pot. Some of them just have that sudden jump in resistance which makes it hard to dial it in. If that's the case you could probably replace it. Yeah, but that's probably not much help, so I've got another idea:

If your amp has a series fx loop, inserting a passive signal pad in the effects loop will do the trick, giving you a secondary volume control. It's such a simple device, being basically just a potentiometer in a box. If you can solder your guitar wiring, you can make one no problemo.

 

[Diego]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

Is it an Egnater thing?

Mine's 15 watts and it's held it's own against pretty much anything. Tomorrow I'll jam with a guy with a Vox VT120... let's see how it holds up.

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

Is it an Egnater thing?

Darn metric watts!!!

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

What are you using for a cab? I found the Rebel 20 to be loud and loose through a 4x12, but right and tight through a 1x12.

I've run it through several different cabs: two different 1x12 cabs and a 2x12 cab. The 2x12 cab is a little bit louder (not much) than the 1x12 but the tone is much better with the 2x12. The difference in volume between them is so slight that it doesn't make sense to sacrifice the tone for such a little volume difference.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

It might just be a naughty master volume pot. Some of them just have that sudden jump in resistance which makes it hard to dial it in. If that's the case you could probably replace it. Yeah, but that's probably not much help, so I've got another idea:

If your amp has a series fx loop, inserting a passive signal pad in the effects loop will do the trick, giving you a secondary volume control. It's such a simple device, being basically just a potentiometer in a box. If you can solder your guitar wiring, you can make one no problemo.

I do see a slight jump at the beginning of the vol pot and replacing it would make it smoother/more even. This might be of some help for just the volume problem and allow me to play at a more reasonable level, but my real concern is that the tone gets so much better when the volume is turned up to where it is painfully too loud. The tone isn't horrible when the vol is "low", but it is terrific when the vol knob gets past 9:00. But at this point it is stadium volume and hurts alot to be anywhere near the speaker cab.

But I'm very interested in your second suggestion of a passive signal pad in the effects loop (yes it is a series loop). I am assuming that the tone that I'm desiring is from cooking the output tubes more? If this is the case, then cutting the preamp signal down with this signal pad in the loop should allow the output tubes to do their thing, right?

So if you would kind sir, could you give me some specs for this little mod?

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

I had that problem with my AC30. Loved the tone when I could crank it up, but it was to loud to play at home or even in most of the venues I play. I sold it.

I'd contact Egnater and get some advice from the manufacturer.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

Check this out!!

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/squ...re-amplifier-attenuator-any-amp-100watts.html

 

[hermetico]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

IMHO, you need a new speaker with lower efficiency, to drop as much as possible the overall loudness.

Inside the amp, maybe, you can try to reduce the headroom of that amp, by using gainy tubes in the pre-amp and power amp.
Gainy tubes in V1 and the PI position will lead you to an earlier break-up so, you should get your sweet spot earlier.
Gainy tubes in power amp will provide earlier break-up also.

Or... try to dramaticaly drop the gain of the amp, throwing a 12AU7 (gain 40) in V1 or a 12AY7 (gain 60) or 5751 (gain 70).
Or... try to drop the gain in the power amp side, throwing one of those in the PI.

but, probably, the best is to use a less efficient speaker/cab.

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

IMHO, you need a new speaker with lower efficiency, to drop as much as possible the overall loudness.

+1. I tried a few different cabs and even a Hot Plate with my R20, but I didn't really fall in love with the amp until I played it through the Egnater 1x12 cab. And this was advice I got from someone else on the forum, so I'm not the only one.

Great amps, though.

 

[scorch]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

Isn't the Rebel 30 the one with 1 watt to 30 watt knobs for each channel? Does this not work correctly or you just don't like the tone?

This is sort of strange because there's only two EL-84s' and two 6V6s' in there and they aren't known for thundering volume.

I had a Mesa Blue Angel w/ two 6V6s' and four EL-84s' that could run either or both and that amp wasn't all that loud.

Going to a less sensitive speaker or a load-box is the easiest route. More drastic would be to place a string of zener diodes in series in the power supply to drop the rail voltage (I had to do this in a Ceriatone EL-84 amp that was red-plating the hell out of the power tubes). That will drop your headroom, also.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

IMHO, you need a new speaker with lower efficiency, to drop as much as possible the overall loudness.

Yeh, I've been wanting to try this for a long time. I just didn't want to spend the time and money going speaker shopping right now. Since the speaker has such a critical effect on tone, I may have to go through several until I find what I works for me. Plus, there aren't many low efficiency speakers around to choose from. It seems like we've been going through a phase of wanting high output amps and high efficiency speakers for the past 40 years or so and it's only recently seeing a demand for smaller amps etc.

Inside the amp, maybe, you can try to reduce the headroom of that amp, by using gainy tubes in the pre-amp and power amp.
Gainy tubes in V1 and the PI position will lead you to an earlier break-up so, you should get your sweet spot earlier.
Gainy tubes in power amp will provide earlier break-up also.

I mostly use my amp for clean so I don't really want to reduce the headroom. If anything, just the opposite.

Or... try to dramaticaly drop the gain of the amp, throwing a 12AU7 (gain 40) in V1 or a 12AY7 (gain 60) or 5751 (gain 70).
Or... try to drop the gain in the power amp side, throwing one of those in the PI.

Well, Yesterday I decided to go ahead and play around with some preamp tube combinations. I ended up with a 12AT7 in the PI, a 5751 in V1, and a 12AY7 in V3 (I tried a 12AU7 in V3 but it sounded pretty flat/blah). My goal is to affect the clean channel but leave the dirty channel alone as much as possible. (The Rebel 30's signal goes...Clean = V1b to V3a,b; Dirty = V1a to V2a,b to V4a,b)

I played around a lot with the EQ to see if this would do the trick, but I think my hearing started to become insensitive after a while, so I gave it a rest and I'll do some more testing today to see what I think.

 

[vinta9e]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

I do see a slight jump at the beginning of the vol pot and replacing it would make it smoother/more even. This might be of some help for just the volume problem and allow me to play at a more reasonable level, but my real concern is that the tone gets so much better when the volume is turned up to where it is painfully too loud. The tone isn't horrible when the vol is "low", but it is terrific when the vol knob gets past 9:00. But at this point it is stadium volume and hurts alot to be anywhere near the speaker cab.

And I thought Egnaters sound exceptionally good at low volumes! That's what impressed me the most about the Tourmaster 4100, apart from its weight... Well, I won't promise you tone nirvana at 60dB for a couple of bucks. That's because some of the factors that contribute to great tone when cranked can't be replicated at low volumes. Speakers distort on both extremes: when they hardly move, and when they move a lot. They usually sound fuller and smoother when a little overdriven and thinner and flatter when underdriven. The cabinet's resonance does colour the tone at high volumes too. Then there's the power amp. The tubes won't compress or distort until they are hit in the face, or in other words they won't cook in the cold. There are ways to light up the power section sans making a lot of noise but these aren't cheap - we're talking attenuators, load boxes like the Palmer PGA-04, power scaling or using an isocab (isolated cabinet).

But I'm very interested in your second suggestion of a passive signal pad in the effects loop (yes it is a series loop). I am assuming that the tone that I'm desiring is from cooking the output tubes more? If this is the case, then cutting the preamp signal down with this signal pad in the loop should allow the output tubes to do their thing, right?

So if you would kind sir, could you give me some specs for this little mod?

Sure, Doc. The power tubes won't cook unless they are driven hard, so this is a bit like a secondary master volume in a box with true bypass. It's called the Soldano Soundman Eliminator and can be used as a solo boost. Here's a link to a DIY thread on Soldano forums (hope that's allowed here):
http://soldano.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=gear&action=display&num=1274246963

 

[hermetico]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

I mostly use my amp for clean so I don't really want to reduce the headroom. If anything, just the opposite.

I know it sounds contrary to logic but, this is how it works, Doc.
You want to reduce the headroom to have cleans with body enough earlier and, therefore, play at lower volumes.
With low gain tubes, you will get no body in your cleans until you reach more or less the break up boundary and, this will force you to play louder.

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

Funny - I run my 50W amp at 6-7 for band practices and sometimes it's not loud enough. Maybe your hearing is more sensitive than other people's...?

 

[MojoMonster]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

Ear plugs?

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Need amp guru - help me reduce Egnater Rebel 30 power

Funny - I run my 50W amp at 6-7 for band practices and sometimes it's not loud enough. Maybe your hearing is more sensitive than other people's...?

Yeh, at home I run my Marshall 50 watt at 4 (11:00) and it's not as loud as my Rebel at 2 (7:30).