Attenuator and a Couple of Guitar Cabs

Markaholic

Markaholic

New member
Ive been looking to get me a thd hotplate for my mesa trip. rectifier because it sucks on low volumes and absolutly drowns my band out at high volumes.(not to mention blowing our ears out).
But heres the deal...i have a mesa 8ohm 4x12 cab and a trace elliot 16ohm 4x12 cab...will the 8ohm hotplate work for both cabs?

The mesa allows me to do a "safe mismatch" when coming out of the head...1 jack coming out of the 4ohm into the 8ohm cab...and 1 jack coming out of the 8ohm jack into the 16ohm cab...but the hot plate only has one input to recieve from the trip. rectifier and two outs for cabs.....see my dillema?
 
Markaholic said:
Ive been looking to get me a thd hotplate for my mesa trip. rectifier because it sucks on low volumes and absolutly drowns my band out at high volumes.(not to mention blowing our ears out).
But heres the deal...i have a mesa 8ohm 4x12 cab and a trace elliot 16ohm 4x12 cab...will the 8ohm hotplate work for both cabs?

The mesa allows me to do a "safe mismatch" when coming out of the head...1 jack coming out of the 4ohm into the 8ohm cab...and 1 jack coming out of the 8ohm jack into the 16ohm cab...but the hot plate only has one input to recieve from the trip. rectifier and two outs for cabs.....see my dillema?
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You might want to post this question on the Boogie Board.
 
When in doubt, RTFM:

http://www.thdelectronics.com/product_page_hotplate.html

II. AS A POWER ATTENUATOR TO TWO SPEAKER CABINETS:
Same as above, except connect cables from both speaker outputs on the Hot Plate to your
two speaker cabinets. These output jacks are wired in parallel, so if both speaker outputs
are being used, the 2Ω Hot Plate would be needed for two 4Ω speaker cabinets, the 4Ω
Hot plate for two 8Ω cabinets and the 8Ω Hot Plate for two 16Ω cabinets.
IMPORTANT: WHEN USING BOTH SPEAKER OUTPUTS FROM
THE HOT PLATE, THE TWO SPEAKER CABINETS SHOULD HAVE THE SAME
IMPEDANCE AS EACH OTHER, AND THAT IM PED ANCE SHOULD BE DOUBLE THE
IMPEDANCE OF THE HOT PLATE.
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So, no - it's not safe to use a Hot Plate with mismatched cabs.
 
if you're drowning out your band, wouldn't just using one 4x12 cab instead of two help on its own with or without an attenuator?
 
Markaholic said:
Ive been looking to get me a thd hotplate for my mesa trip. rectifier because it sucks on low volumes and absolutly drowns my band out at high volumes.(not to mention blowing our ears out).
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It sounds like your problem is that you are using the wrong amp for your particular situation. There are plenty of amps that sound great at a reasonable level.
 
ocnor said:
It sounds like your problem is that you are using the wrong amp for your particular situation. There are plenty of amps that sound great at a reasonable level.
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Eh, not that sound like a Rectifier, though, and as a Single owner, the difference in total output between a Single and a Triple isn't THAT much. Rather, the biggest difference is in headroom, particularly with regards to the low end.

That said, the guys telling you to drop one of the cabs are right. The Hot Plate is a godsend for that amp as well (I use one). Sell the Elliot cab and buy an 8 ohm Hotplate.

If you INSIST on having the look of a full stack behind you at all times, then have the Elliot rewired to 8 ohms, and buy a 4-ohm hotplate.
 
ocnor said:
Thank goodness for that. ;)
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Hey, we can't ALL have great taste... :D



(to be fair, I own a Recto less for the "recto sound" than for all the other great tones it'll do - it's surprising, but I suspect David Gilmour could gig with a Single in Raw mode with a delay in the loop and not miss a beat.)
 
well i dont use the two cabs since we have another guitarist...and when i did use 2 cabs ..it was on each side of the drums..i never like stacked cabs.
I was just trying to maybe future proof my investment maybe,if down the line,i wanted to use 2 cabs again..thanks for all your replies. :D
 
ocnor said:
Before you blow your wad on a THD Hotplate you might want to check out the attenuators that Ted Weber makes. http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm
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Seconded. I happen to be a Hot Plate owner myself, but from speaking with guys who own Webers, if I were to buy any other attenuator than the one I already have, his would be the first ones I'd try. They're supposed to be incredibly transparent, and I believe are a bit cheaper, to boot.
 
i've worked my way up from a 15W Micro Mass through a 50W Mini Mass to a 100W Mass w/ all the fixings. Great units. The way that they're set up you can use them as tone shaping tools as well as just attenuators.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
If you INSIST on having the look of a full stack behind you at all times, then have the Elliot rewired to 8 ohms, and buy a 4-ohm hotplate.
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Or just leave one of the cabs unplugged. If you are miced into the PA, no one but you will know. ;^)
 
ocnor said:
Before you blow your wad on a THD Hotplate you might want to check out the attenuators that Ted Weber makes. http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm
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I ordered the Weber Mass III 150 off of eurotubes.com a week ago because i also needed tubes, and when it came in, the thing was absolute junk. It didnt work..the bypass switch was like it was reversed...the pots are huge, and i understand why they are, but they were making a grinding noise, almost like a "metal on metal" type noise everytime you turn them.(like when your brakes pads are toasted and hitting the metal) The knobs didnt seem to do anything when you turned them. And to boot, the guy at eurotubes tells me to return it to weber.

Ive used a hotplate before with great results, and as for the weber, they kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.
 
I played on a triple yesterday at guitar center. I was pretty impressed with how good it sounded on low volume in modern.

Of course there is that fizz that only goes away when you crank it(I think this is why the Rectos get the bad rap for fizz). But atleast with the dual it is long gone buy the time you hit drummer level. When I say drummer level, i'm talking about the type of drummer who would play in a band that uses Rectos ;).
 
I can whole-heartedly endorse the THD Hotplate. I can't quite justify its cost compared to other attenuators, but the HotPlate is the only one I've ever used. While I don't have any comparison to the Webers, I can definitely say that I love my HotPlate. I have an 80-watt 4x6L6GC 2x12 tube combo that just shakes my house apart when cranked. But with -12 dB attenuation I can still play loud with a smoking hot power section but not wake up every sleeping baby in my neighborhood. At -8 dB attenuation I get a much better "woof" from the 12" speakers and its still not nearly as loud as unattenuated but I have to save those moments for the middle of the day on a weekday when the whole neighborhood is at work. Any more attenuation than those 2 settings and the amp's tone suffers pretty badly, any less attenuation and its just too loud to be nearby.

Anyways, there you have it from a HotPlate owner. I still recommend trying one side-by-side with a Weber and if the Weber matches the tone quality of the THD, definitely save a bundle of cash by purchasing it instead.
 
Markaholic said:
I ordered the Weber Mass III 150 off of eurotubes.com a week ago because i also needed tubes, and when it came in, the thing was absolute junk. It didnt work..the bypass switch was like it was reversed...the pots are huge, and i understand why they are, but they were making a grinding noise, almost like a "metal on metal" type noise everytime you turn them.(like when your brakes pads are toasted and hitting the metal) The knobs didnt seem to do anything when you turned them. And to boot, the guy at eurotubes tells me to return it to weber.

Ive used a hotplate before with great results, and as for the weber, they kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.
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RFTM. The tone stack only works through the line out, not the speaker out. The pots aren't like audio pots, they are designed to attenuate current. My kid has a 50w MASS Lite and it's a great little unit.
 
Tadpui said:
Any more attenuation than those 2 settings and the amp's tone suffers pretty badly, any less attenuation and its just too loud to be nearby.
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Do you use the "Deep" and "Bright" switches? They're not perfect, but basically they allow a little extra of what's getting stripped out to bleed through in those ranges, and with them on I can get perfectly good tone out of -16db.
 
c7sus said:
RFTM. The tone stack only works through the line out, not the speaker out. The pots aren't like audio pots, they are designed to attenuate current. My kid has a 50w MASS Lite and it's a great little unit.
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Yeah-- I didn't RTFM when I got my first Weber (the Micro Mass) and was a little confused by the knobs at very first. They don't increase the amount of attenuation as you turn clockwise-- they work more like volume knobs (attenuation is greater the more the knob is turned counter clockwise) and there's a whole lot of attenuation that happens in the last little bit of the knob. When I first tried it, I had the high and low attenuation knobs about 80% to the right-most setting and would click bypass and wouldn't hear much difference between the bypassed and attenuated signals so I thought it wasn't working.
It didn't take that long to figured out (I never did RTFM though :D), but at very first I thought it was useless.
Also, the knobs have had that kind of grinding feeling and noise (though it's not all that loud) on all of my Webers-- at least for the attenuation control. I've never had an issue with that.
 
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