Power Attenuator

  • Thread starter Thread starter Natural Gass
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Natural Gass

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Do any of you use a power attenuator? I have a Marshall AVT50 amp that sounds really good cranked, but my studio room is small and I don't want to damage my ears (any more than they already are). WHAT!

I read a little about the Marshall PB100 and the THD Electronics Hot Plate. The Hot Plate has more knobs and lights. The lower price on the Hot Plate makes me suspicious about the quality. Dam, they're both kind of spendy though...

I was looking at a used Power Soak at a local shop $100. I guess the Power Soak was developed and used by Tom Scholz - Boston. It looked pretty simple and was kind of beat up. They didn't have any AVT50's in the store so I didn't give it a try.

So, I was wondering if any of you use them and what you think of em. Thanks!
 
Hey NG, can't respond with an answer but I'll chime in to say that I'm curious, too. I've been considering buying some tube gear to go with my old Ampeg 4x12, but I can do without the high volume. Like you, I've been looking at the Rockman option but don't know anything about them. If you hear anything or try one out, let us know. Good luck!
 
I picked up a Marshall PB100 from a classified ad on harmony central. I paid $165. After years of sitting in my friend's basement I can now use my Marshall JCM 800 2203 again. I run it into a celestion v30 add it sounds awesome!

Of course it doesn't sound as good as cranking a 100 watt head through a 4x12 cabinet, but when do you ever get to do that?

I don't know how much of the quality loss comes from attenuation and how much comes from just hearing it softer. But anyway, the power brake has enabled me to crank my amps and get better tone than I've gotten in years.

Do they damage the amps? I don't know. Not yet for me. But I wear through the tubes pretty quickly now.
 
I'm not sure how well power attenuators work on an amp using a solid state power section. Usually they attenuate the output power of tube amps so that you can crank the master and distort/compress the signal throught the power tubes, thus achieving cranked tube tone at low volumes. Solid state does not work the same way.

Something that you could try is to replace the ECC83 preamp tube with a lower gain 12A*7 tube (5751, 12AY7, 12AT7, 12AU7 etc.), which would lower the gain going into the power section, then crank the master to see if that helps.

I would definitely do some research on the internet, especially at this site:
http://www.amptone.com
 
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