speaker box verses amp attenuator

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bigtoe

New member
i'm looking at doing some louder amp work in my house in july...

i'd prefer to use a 4x12 i have...but am not married to it.

does anyone have any opinions / suggestions on which would work better between a power soak and speaker enclosure? building an enclosure or using a power soak thing? i was going to check out the Dr. Z version.

i've never used either...both cost about the same.

i'm fairly certain the guy wants it to sound like it's on 11...as do i!

any suggestions welcome. my house is a slab - no basement available...

gracias.

Mike
 
bigtoe said:
i'm fairly certain the guy wants it to sound like it's on 11...as do i!
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I just wanted to point out that getting it to sound like it's on 11 in the recording usually does not require actually turning the amp up to 11. Remember that the microphone is most likely going to be riding the speaker grille like white on rice; things sound entirely different there than they do where your ear is located.

Also, there is an important technical difference between something like Dr. Z's Airbrake and the Power Soak and devices like it. Power Soak uses static electrical resistance to attenuate the signal and as such can put excess strain on the output section of you amp - possibly even damaging it. I wouldn't recommend it as being worth the risk. The Airbrake is a safer design in that it provides a reactive load (much as an actual loudspeaker would) that changes impedence with frequency, and if you *had* to go with a power sink device, something like that would be more recommended.

However, I put power braking in the same class of device as amp modeling; it's a comprimise solution. If you're going to comprimise the sound, you might as well go with a good amp modeler as your solution, as you'll find more uses and versatility for that in the long run than you will a power brake.

Preferable all the way around, I'd say, to baffle off the cabinet than to mess with the cabinet's sound. And to remember that turning it to 11 is not necessarily the way to get the best "sounds like its on 11" sound to record.

IMHO YMMV SNAFU ETC

G.
 
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snafu!

emulators are out of the question...these guys are kinda purists.

i'm going to look at building a BIG box. like 10X10. should be interesting. thanks for the suggestions.

ps - glen thanks for the soak deliniations...thought they were all the same.
 
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I would have to recommend the Weber Mass as the attenuator of choice. It is a very different design. The Mass is built around a speaker voice coil so it works exactly like a speaker would.

I have been using my broom closet as an iso booth and am getting great results.
 
The other problem with using a powersoak is that you don't push the speakers as much. If the cabinet breakup is an essential part of the sound you are going for, the power-soak type things won't help.
 
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