mboogman
Active member
Just curious. I see that Soldano uses them, Mesa uses them, and probably others that I'm not aware of. Why? Are they superior in feel to normal resistors, giving some kind of "sag" feature or what? 
C
cliffc8488
Active member
LDRs (photocells) are used for switching. They have a negative coefficient wrt to incident light. The LDRs used in amps are co-packaged with an LED. When the LED is on the LDR will pass signal and vice-versa.
LDRs are popular because they are fairly silent when switching, last long and can withstand high voltages. A possible downside of an LDR is that the resistance is also dependent upon applied voltage so they will add some distortion. Whether or not that distortion is undesirable is open to debate.
LDRs are popular because they are fairly silent when switching, last long and can withstand high voltages. A possible downside of an LDR is that the resistance is also dependent upon applied voltage so they will add some distortion. Whether or not that distortion is undesirable is open to debate.