Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

Re: Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

Hehe, I don't worry, you wouldn't have a hope. As you seem keen to make evident.

1) I never claimed that

2)Inductance, for one thing.

1) You surely made it seem like that, claiming that resistor doesn't provide the load speaker has. It does provide stable load across the frequency range, whether or not it's actually called impedance is irrelevant. Speaker impedance varies with frequency like you said, which might matter in tube circuit, but SS amp is happy as long it has ENOUGH load.

2) You didn't answer: Why it's safe to use whatever speaker with whatever amp as long as impedance matches? Speaker coil is an inductor, so it provides some feedback back to amp, which again might matter for output transistor or tubes, that SS amp doesn't have.
 
Re: Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

Okay, let's end this drivel. You're right, and I know nothing. Enjoy your playing.
 
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Re: Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

I don't try to claim I know more than you Crusty. I don't even dare to say I'm right here. But I haven't got any reason to think I'm wrong, because you don't give me any.

I got this idea, I used whatever I know about electronics to figure it out. And from my veiwpoint, theoretically and practically it works. Then you just come and say "No, your wrong. It doesn't work. Just play your guitar and leave this to pros". I think I have right to ask why?

I'm sure you're a good amp tech, so if you could tell my why, I'd happily listen. But because you just act like an ass, it seems I've had to resort the same.

Edx: No offense taken. I read parts of them that seemed more unfamiliar to me. But I haven't got time to dive deeper in the theory currently.
 
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Re: Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

on crusty's defense he sometimes is too rough around the corners, but that's it.

just to clarify for you, saying that impedance load matters less on Solid State amps than on Vaccum Tube amps isn't the same as saying that it doesn't matter at all, Solid state ain't really happy with "enough" resistive load, you only trick it to happiness while in reality it can burn by the lack of a proper inductive load
 
Re: Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

I'm going on record as saying this is a bad idea, you would be better off finding one of the Mustang floorboards since those are made for exactly what you want to do, or possibly finding one of the bigger Mustang amps so you don't need a 2nd amplifier.

FWIW, the definition of Impedance is the effective resistance of an electric circuit or component to alternating current, arising from the combined effects of ohmic resistance and reactance.

That said, it's a ss amp, so you can run it without a speaker hooked up and it will be fine. Or, pretty much any impedance above the minimum rating (probably 8 or 4 ohms), and since it is SS, the higher the impedance, the less power it can put out. And yes, a resistor provides a frequency independent impedance, meaning it is the same DC or AC. A SS amp sees nothing hooked up as an infinite impedance (or resistance) so it can't really generate any power without a speaker, whereas a tube amp without a speaker only sees the resistance of the primary coil in the transformer, so, without a speaker is sees a very low reistance/impedance therefore tries to generate very high currents, which turns into heat being dumped into the transformer, and eventually burns up the transformer.

So, yes, if you use resistors that can handle the power of the amp you could theoretically do what you are wanting to, but even a 50W resistor will get hot with 10 - 20W being constantly dumped into it, you'll probably want to do some heat sinking or something, but again, the more resistance, the less power the amp can put out. Still, taking that into account, see my first statement.

*EDIT* Going back and reading, you've already built it and it works, cool. You could have used a higher resistance (impedance) than 16 ohms and be fine, it will just reduce the amount of heat that is generated in the resistors. You could also probably make a voltage divider circuit and tap off of that to feed the other amp. Or, as Surgeon suggested, an L-pad would work nicely although I would still probably put a resistor in line with the tap feeding the 2nd amp's input.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you seem to have a very basic understanding of electronics, which in this case worked out okay, but I would definitely recommend a better understanding before digging into higher power/voltage circuits. At the same time, a lot of the advice you got in this thread, while well intentioned, wasn't exactly correct for the application either. Tube amps do care a lot more about how the load (speaker) reacts with the transformer, but a simple ss power amp like in your Mustang is pretty straight forward and doesn't really care as long as it sees a resistance/impedance higher than it's minimum rating.
 
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Re: Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

Electrical current retarding element has it's resistance and reactance. They are both measured in Ohms. For DC there is only a resistance, and for AC there are both resistance and reactance. These two make up impedance which is also measured in Ohms.

impedence (Ohm) = resistance (Ohm) + reactance (Ohm) - note it's not a simple addition, but a vector

Reactance is capacitance and inductance dependent, therefore also frequency dependent. We have 2 opposite cases:
1. all inductive load - for zero frequency will have zero reactance which means that ideal inductive load withour resistance will act like a short cut for DC
2. all capacitive load - for zero frequency will have infinite reactance, which means that ideal capacitive load, withour resistance will act like an open circuit for DC.


A common speaker will have both resistance and reactance. For DC it will be around 8 Ohms, and as the frequency rises, the inductive and capacitive nature of the speaker come in play:

speaker freqency-impedance curve

OK, devastone wrote the rest :)

I'm just not sure if you're trying to take some load off of the main speaker, or you're trying to make a speaker output into a line out, which would be a bad idea.
 
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Re: Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

2) You didn't answer: Why it's safe to use whatever speaker with whatever amp as long as impedance matches? Speaker coil is an inductor, so it provides some feedback back to amp, which again might matter for output transistor or tubes, that SS amp doesn't have.

I think you meant transformer, not transistor for tube amps. A SS amp actually does have output transistors (although they may be packed into a IC).
 
Re: Simple load box to attenuate speaker signal

Thank you Devastone and Cronnin from your very informative posts. I generally just learn what I need when I need it, so my understanding may be pretty shallow at a times.

I'm actually only using Mustang until I get (can afford) a decent standalone effects. I'm not much a fan of digital gear.

Indeed I meant transformer... Being non-english speaker and writing posts on an phone in hurry, there's bound to be some errors I think, but that was bad one...
 
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