Attenuators

[harddriver]

This won't happen with a loud amp. The closest to transparent is a good reamping system the Power Station but is overkill for your application. You could try a Suhr RL with a small, solid state power amp. This works great most of the time.


Higher SPL is responsible for both of these. You can't have it both ways!

Having said all that if it's a high gain, master volume amp then forget the above. Turning down the MV real low works better in general.

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Everything stated here is 100% correct.

You cannot push the speakers hard at bedroom level.......One can only shave off some volume to about -8DB without large effects to the tone of the amp due to the Fletcher Munson curves.

For bedroom playing Zen recommendation of using a Suhr load box to an IR then re-amped via studio monitors and or a power amp would be your best best.

 

[SFW]

The Power Station 100 is killer. I use mine all the time. With that said, when you lower the volume, you are not going to move the speakers like when you have volume. So, the tone will change. There is no getting around that.

 

[innogator]

Another vote for the PowerStation. I have a PS-2A, the Boss WAZA TAE, and a couple Weber Mass attenuators.

I shot the Fryette and Boss out by matching the volume of each with the volume of an amp and switching between them (raw amp, Fryette, Boss). The Fryette did lose a little high end but could be compensated to match the raw amp pretty closely with the presence. The Boss might be better for recording or could be nice for live gigs with built in FX and IRs but didn't sound as natural and lost a little of the feel to me. The Webers are great compared to most passive attenuators but it definitely loses high end as you turn down and the Treble boost function sounds very artificial.

 

[RossJohnDavies]

sorry if i missed this in the info sheet but still only for use with TwoNotes IRs or can we use any IR from any company?

Thanks for getting in touch. Great question!

There is no IR tech inside this unit as it is an all analog device - however it does include Line Outs, a complementary copy of our GENOME software and 24 DynIR Impulse Responses for adding Cabinet emulation in your DAW (or via the GENOME Standalone Application). You can certainly use any software or hardware IR Loader of your choosing with this and GENOME also features a dedicated non-DynIR IR Loader which can load virtually any IR in your library. Let me know if you have any other questions concerning this!

 

[errrrrl]

For attenuation I prefer the Fryette PS100 but for direct recording using IRs n stuff, I prefer the Waza TAE. Both are good units

 

[JerEvil]

I’m a “thrice sold it” PowerStation owner. Good unit with lots of functions. I still ended up not really attenuating and just using it to power my rack stuff and it was just too vanilla for that.

I recently got sent the RedSeven AmpCentral Evo that I need to dig into but it is also a load box and attenuator.

Also adds effects loop and IR Loading as well as built in noise gate. I’ll certainly report back my finding a but I can tell you the DI’s I’ve heard from others in comparison, this is a killer (seemingly) unit.

 

[harddriver]

I don't want you to think that an attenuator won't be beneficial in your situation it just depends on what level of volume is considered Bedroom for you. It will be balancing act and it can be done. You can set the attenuator to about -4 or -8DB and then crank up your amps master volume to the level you want to play at which with a 100 watt amp with a good balance between the running the master up and keeping the attenuator at no more than -8db I find I get really good LOUD TV volumes that still push the speakers some and gets a nice full fidelity tone and feel but at lower non deafening volume....but it is not what I define as bedroom volumes.

I am assuming you are referring to an SLO or Mezzabarba which have good master volumes since you are looking to pick up an SLO or ish amp.

Here is my 69 NOS plexi build 100 watt run at wall voltage with a Lar/Mar Type PPIMV with a PEC pot set to about 5(noon) Half way up, the THD hotplate set to -4DB running into one Marshall 4x12 with Celestion Heritage 12H-30 speakers. It was fairly loud but still pushed the speakers enough without being deafening and the tone is not really affected by the THD except for volume control. I have two attenuators a Rivera Rockcrusher and an old THD and I find anything beyond -8Db you start hearing that dampening effect from the Fletcher Munson curves. You can hear me picking the strings at times to gage where the volume level was at in my office room whcih was a small room.

In this video I bypassed the THD set to 0DB and set the PPIMV to 2 or 9 0'ocolock, In this video you can hear me hitting the strings while picking notes and chords. This is about a quiet as I play my amps.....anything lower than that doesn't drive the speakers to get a good tone IMHO.


Here's another 100 watt plexi from an old RT member into a Fryette PS 2 I believe. I think you would get good results with the Fryette PS or a good Attenuator IMHO it will just be that balancing act between the master and the attenuator I mentioned.


If you are trying to retain all your dynamics for midnight level bedroom playing that won't wake up the kids that's just unrealistic as Zen mentioned earlier then you are going to have to look into running the amp into a Suhr Load box with an IR and then reamp into power amp to drive studio monitors....even this won't be the same experience as standing in front of an amp a volume but it will sound good and the IR will respond as a speaker being driven hard at volume.

 

[Old School Steve]

Guys - I've all of the comments and they seem to bring a lot of additional variables into the discussion (recording, gigging, FX loops, etc.) So I'm left confused as I only need VOLUME ATTENUATION and was hoping this thread would make my choice easier.

I'd be grateful for a recommendation based on my following situation:

• Goal: Allow my Bogner head(s) to be cranked up to tap into the tube overdrive, while attenuating the volume to room levels
• Playing environment: At home only (no gigging, no recording)
• Cabinets: One (at a time)
• FX Loop: Not needed (already in amp heads)

I have zero experience with evaluating attenuators since buying a Tom Scholz Power Soak back in the 1980s and it nearly burned up my Marshall JTM combo amp (I literally saw smoke). Since then, I've largely ignored attenuators as risky and I don't want to risk $3K-$4K amp heads for the sake of tapping into a little extra tube sound sweetness versus simply turning the Master Volume down low.

I'm not technical, so I'm not willing to mess with the amp circuitry, etc. I'm also not willing to tolerate noticeable loss of tonal quality, or it defeats the idea of turning the amp up for better tone only to loose the benefits via attenuation loss.

I don't know the difference between passive/reactive attenuators, or slaving vs. attenuating vs. Load vs. IR (although I see another RT thread on this subject that I will read).

Can someone give me an idiot-proof approach to simply moderating my Bogner volume?

Thanks in advance.

 

[RossJohnDavies]

Guys - I've all of the comments and they seem to bring a lot of additional variables into the discussion (recording, gigging, FX loops, etc.) So I'm left confused as I only need VOLUME ATTENUATION and was hoping this thread would make my choice easier.

I'd be grateful for a recommendation based on my following situation:

• Goal: Allow my Bogner head(s) to be cranked up to tap into the tube overdrive, while attenuating the volume to room levels
• Playing environment: At home only (no gigging, no recording)
• Cabinets: One (at a time)
• FX Loop: Not needed (already in amp heads)

I have zero experience with evaluating attenuators since buying a Tom Scholz Power Soak back in the 1980s and it nearly burned up my Marshall JTM combo amp (I literally saw smoke). Since then, I've largely ignored attenuators as risky and I don't want to risk $3K-$4K amp heads for the sake of tapping into a little extra tube sound sweetness versus simply turning the Master Volume down low.

I'm not technical, so I'm not willing to mess with the amp circuitry, etc. I'm also not willing to tolerate noticeable loss of tonal quality, or it defeats the idea of turning the amp up for better tone only to loose the benefits via attenuation loss.

I don't know the difference between passive/reactive attenuators, or slaving vs. attenuating vs. Load vs. IR (although I see another RT thread on this subject that I will read).

Can someone give me an idiot-proof approach to simply moderating my Bogner volume?

Thanks in advance.

Ross from Two notes here and a valuable question for sure. The Reload II seems it would be right up your street as it is predominantly an all-analog attenuator that re-amps your signal via an integrated transparent power amplifier. It also has the benefit of being able to add an additional FX loop to your Amp as well as running 2 cabs from the dual cabinet outputs — in short, if you wanted a Stereo rig with some Stereo FX, this would certainly be a good choice for you. As it is all analog, it does not feature any IR Technology but does have Line Outputs that can feed an IR loader if you wanted to expand your setup in the future. Let me know if you have any additional questions, I am always happy to weigh in and help!

 

[Metlupass2]

Guys - I've all of the comments and they seem to bring a lot of additional variables into the discussion (recording, gigging, FX loops, etc.) So I'm left confused as I only need VOLUME ATTENUATION and was hoping this thread would make my choice easier.

I'd be grateful for a recommendation based on my following situation:

• Goal: Allow my Bogner head(s) to be cranked up to tap into the tube overdrive, while attenuating the volume to room levels
• Playing environment: At home only (no gigging, no recording)
• Cabinets: One (at a time)
• FX Loop: Not needed (already in amp heads)

I have zero experience with evaluating attenuators since buying a Tom Scholz Power Soak back in the 1980s and it nearly burned up my Marshall JTM combo amp (I literally saw smoke). Since then, I've largely ignored attenuators as risky and I don't want to risk $3K-$4K amp heads for the sake of tapping into a little extra tube sound sweetness versus simply turning the Master Volume down low.

I'm not technical, so I'm not willing to mess with the amp circuitry, etc. I'm also not willing to tolerate noticeable loss of tonal quality, or it defeats the idea of turning the amp up for better tone only to loose the benefits via attenuation loss.

I don't know the difference between passive/reactive attenuators, or slaving vs. attenuating vs. Load vs. IR (although I see another RT thread on this subject that I will read).

Can someone give me an idiot-proof approach to simply moderating my Bogner volume?

Thanks in advance.

Fryette PS-2A Power Station


/Thread

 

[ZEN Amps]

Guys - I've all of the comments and they seem to bring a lot of additional variables into the discussion (recording, gigging, FX loops, etc.) So I'm left confused as I only need VOLUME ATTENUATION and was hoping this thread would make my choice easier.

I'd be grateful for a recommendation based on my following situation:

• Goal: Allow my Bogner head(s) to be cranked up to tap into the tube overdrive, while attenuating the volume to room levels
• Playing environment: At home only (no gigging, no recording)
• Cabinets: One (at a time)
• FX Loop: Not needed (already in amp heads)

I have zero experience with evaluating attenuators since buying a Tom Scholz Power Soak back in the 1980s and it nearly burned up my Marshall JTM combo amp (I literally saw smoke). Since then, I've largely ignored attenuators as risky and I don't want to risk $3K-$4K amp heads for the sake of tapping into a little extra tube sound sweetness versus simply turning the Master Volume down low.

I'm not technical, so I'm not willing to mess with the amp circuitry, etc. I'm also not willing to tolerate noticeable loss of tonal quality, or it defeats the idea of turning the amp up for better tone only to loose the benefits via attenuation loss.

I don't know the difference between passive/reactive attenuators, or slaving vs. attenuating vs. Load vs. IR (although I see another RT thread on this subject that I will read).

Can someone give me an idiot-proof approach to simply moderating my Bogner volume?

Thanks in advance.

Bogners (in general) do not really benefit from external attenuation - just turn down the master volume as mentioned already in this thread. The "tube overdrive" you speak of is not affected by the MV, unless you tend to play very, very loud.

For some reason many folks don't like this advice, but I can assure you it's sound.

 

[Eazy-ESP]

Bogners (in general) do not really benefit from external attenuation - just turn down the master volume as mentioned already in this thread. The "tube overdrive" you speak of is not affected by the MV, unless you tend to play very, very loud.

For some reason many folks don't like this advice, but I can assure you it's sound.

100% not all amps need attenuation. I’ve been experimenting past week.

Pulled out my Cornford Hellcat and despite still having a great MV, a magic happens when the power section is cranked.

Then did the same to my Fryette Deliverance 120 and found I actually prefer to just keep the MV low. Sounds better to me.

Bogners I can imagine being exactly as you describe.

 

[Jccobb2]

Bogners (in general) do not really benefit from external attenuation - just turn down the master volume as mentioned already in this thread. The "tube overdrive" you speak of is not affected by the MV, unless you tend to play very, very loud.

For some reason many folks don't like this advice, but I can assure you it's sound.

100%. I have 3x bogners and they rarely benefit from the master being cranked. If the MV knob is too sensitive (and they can be at bedroom volume), you can jumper the FX loop and use the level control as a second master.

If you just want to buy some gear get a PS2A. it's the swiss army knife you don't know you need. you'll use it for something besides being the best "attenuator" you can get.

 

[BenoA]

Boss Tube Expander with my 3 Mesa amps. I like the built-in delays and verbs.

 

[skoora]

Question for ecstasy owners. Does Plexi mode actually get like an actual Plexi when you crank the volume? I owned one in the 90’s but didn’t have an attenuator to test it. At regular volumes it was just a mild gain and I never cranked the amp to see if it would get filthy.

 

[Old School Steve]

100%. I have 3x bogners and they rarely benefit from the master being cranked. If the MV knob is too sensitive (and they can be at bedroom volume), you can jumper the FX loop and use the level control as a second master.

If you just want to buy some gear get a PS2A. it's the swiss army knife you don't know you need. you'll use it for something besides being the best "attenuator" you can get.

My experience with my Bogners over 25 years is that they sound great at all volume levels, so I was posing the attenuation question to the group "just in case" I'm missing out on additional sonic goodness.

Thanks everyone for the input.

 

[Old School Steve]

Boss Tube Expander with my 3 Mesa amps. I like the built-in delays and verbs.

View attachment 426275

Sweet setup and makes me miss my Dual Recto head & 4x12 and 2x12 Recto cabinets.

I'm just down to my Rect-o-Verb 50 combo (listed for sale) as I complete the transition to all-Bogner.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I agree that attenuating is not to record your loud ass amp low volume. It is just to knock off a few db so you shake the house less. I use my first Gen Torpedo Reload 1 that way. But even straight through, the SS poweramp doesn't sound as good or like the Marshall poweramp. There is a diff. That said, if only knocking off a bit of vol, the sound that loud is still better than just playing with the master volume low. But nothing will sound exactly like the amp you want to crank straight in. That's just the way it goes.