High wattage tube amps in small rooms

[Newc]

Non-Master Volume is exactly that - you don't have the volume control for the Poweramp.

If you plugged into your FX loop Return, or Poweramp In, instead of the regular Input, you'd get out whatever went in. Volume would be controlled by the guitar or other device between the guitar and amp (pedal, etc).

The one benefit to that is you don't have a lonely little pot sucking massive amounts of tone and mojo and soul and playing ability out of your amp.


If each channel has its own Volume control, but there's no Master Volume, you have a Non-Master Volume amp.

But if you don't have a tube-based power amp, then poweramp distortion is not what you need.

[tonemonster]

Yeah, but you are not driving the power tubes, then. what you are doing is pushing the preamp section, getting the preamp tubes cooking, but that does nothing for achieving power tube distortion. you need either a power soak for that OR an isolation speaker cabinet. In his case, the iso cab isn't the proper choice, the soak is.

While I understand about power tube saturation and there really is no substitute for that sound, and driving them to acheive good tone, "decent" tone can be obtained at lower volumes with a volume pedal in the FX loop. There is alot of controversy on attenuators affecting the tone of the amp. I have never tried one, so I cant speak from experience, but alot of people sure seem to think they affect the tone, and I know people that have tried them and found this to be true. I have used the FX loop volume control trick, and have had really good results with it. I just thought it would work for him too as I have had such good results with it on several different amps. again, its not perfect, but it does allow you to get pretty good tones at comfortable listening volumes in a home.

[Jolly Roger]

You can lower the power of a 100 watt tubeamp by removing the two outside powertubes and reduce the impedance by half. Still loud but the amp will distort earlier. THD Yellow Jackets or TAD Tone Bones are even more effective but will alter your sound because of the EL 84´s.

[emperor_black]

A Mesa MK IV is a amp with a master volume. It has a preamp volume and an o/p volume. A Peavey 6505 is a non-master volume amp. There is just a post gain knob which essentially is a power-amp volume.

In the MK IV, I can dime the gain, reduce the preamp volume and keep the master o/p around 3 or 4 and get nice tube saturation at decent volumes. My wife still cant watch TV when I'm playing but you get the picture.

For ultra-low bedroom volumes, I got myself a Blackstar HT-5.

And oh, I got one of those volume boxes from eBay and its a POS. It goes from ultra quiet to LOUDDD with a very slight turn. Its basically useless. Your best bet is to get an EQ pedal with a level control and reduce the level. You could compensate the loss of bass also with that pedal.

An attenuator sucks tone. End of story. There are many who argue they dont. but they're just in denial. From what I've read, ultimate attenuator is the best. Visit his website. he has tons of info about how bad attenuators are for the o/p transformer of a tube amp.

Finally, sorry, but you should save up for a better tube amp. the BV is not a very good amp for getting great tones. You might just be wasting a bunch of money trying to make it sound good.

[roodyrocker]

I'm in the process of trying out a few attenuators with my Marshall Randy Rhoads amp. Its a 100W amp with no master volume and no effects loop, not even channel switching. Anyway, Ive tried the THD Hot Plate,. the Ho (sold as the Ultimate Attenuator, and an Alex's Attenuator. So far I like the Alex best. When you use these attuators to cut the volume down significantly enough to make the amp suitable for home use, there is a change but I'm not sure its really the tone being degraded but rather the speakers lose that punch and hit. IOW, the sound change is more from loosing that speaker thump as compared to being cranked. Anyway, using an attenuator with these big amps is a necessity even for the big boys in larger venues than your average bedroom, check out the pix below. I shot this last year, Paul Gilbert live with Racer X. Rhoads amp with a THD Hot Plate sitting on top of it:



The Ho (Ultimate) can be ordered with an optional "Bedroom" switch which will bring the amp down to very low levels and sounds rather good at that volume. My Ho Ateenuator has this feature. Next, I'm going to try the Faustine Phantom but it is rather pricey. The price on the Alex is much more reasonable though and it will make the amp useable at lower volumes. When I used my THD Hot Plate live with the Rhoads Marshall amp I had to attenuate the amp significantly then used a Fulltone OCD to hit the front end of the amp for a really nice Marshall tone which cut through the mix easily!

[emperor_black]

Rudy,
Nice shot of PG. Poor guy's still rocking with those isolation headphones? A pity.

Did you get a chance to read the article on vintageamps? This is an excerpt from that article. They talk about their effect on the o/p transformer which IMO is the heart of the amp. Have you looked into isolation cabinets? But those are not practical onstage for sure.

The best solution is to find a safe and palatable way of getting the volume and tone to a point you like without ruining your amp. I do know that Mercury Magnetics does not want their OUTPUT TRANSFORMERS used with any attenuators. They have done their own investigating and feel that running attenuation is damaging to the transformers. I tend to agree with them since the truth is, the load is static and the transformer will not behave the same with loads such as an 8 or 16 ohm resistor or even inductive loads. The truth is, they don't sound that good either. If your amp is set to 16 ohms and your pumping 100 watts into a 16 ohm load attenuator, your theoretically matching your load to your amps Output Transformer. That is supposed to get you the correct frequency response and provide a natural effect. the truth is, that by the time you reduce the power level to the point where your satisfied with the volume, your more likely to be disappointed with the tone quality.

[Racerx2k]

A Mesa MK IV is a amp with a master volume. It has a preamp volume and an o/p volume. A Peavey 6505 is a non-master volume amp. There is just a post gain knob which essentially is a power-amp volume.

In the MK IV, I can dime the gain, reduce the preamp volume and keep the master o/p around 3 or 4 and get nice tube saturation at decent volumes. My wife still cant watch TV when I'm playing but you get the picture.

For ultra-low bedroom volumes, I got myself a Blackstar HT-5.

And oh, I got one of those volume boxes from eBay and its a POS. It goes from ultra quiet to LOUDDD with a very slight turn. Its basically useless. Your best bet is to get an EQ pedal with a level control and reduce the level. You could compensate the loss of bass also with that pedal.

An attenuator sucks tone. End of story. There are many who argue they dont. but they're just in denial. From what I've read, ultimate attenuator is the best. Visit his website. he has tons of info about how bad attenuators are for the o/p transformer of a tube amp.

Finally, sorry, but you should save up for a better tube amp. the BV is not a very good amp for getting great tones. You might just be wasting a bunch of money trying to make it sound good.

No denial, Chief. I played through a Scholz Power Soak with my Laney for quite a few gigs. The only time I sensed ANY tone-suckage, was if I tried to attenuate to it's lowest settings. I have read other people experiencing the same thing, so it MAY just be the nature of the beast, there.
The one thing you WON'T get with an attenuator (and someone already touched on it) is the ability to really push the speakers and move some air. However, for bedroom practice, is this really necessary?

[roodyrocker]

Rudy,
Nice shot of PG. Poor guy's still rocking with those isolation headphones? A pity.

Did you get a chance to read the article on vintageamps? This is an excerpt from that article. They talk about their effect on the o/p transformer which IMO is the heart of the amp. Have you looked into isolation cabinets? But those are not practical onstage for sure.

The best solution is to find a safe and palatable way of getting the volume and tone to a point you like without ruining your amp. I do know that Mercury Magnetics does not want their OUTPUT TRANSFORMERS used with any attenuators. They have done their own investigating and feel that running attenuation is damaging to the transformers. I tend to agree with them since the truth is, the load is static and the transformer will not behave the same with loads such as an 8 or 16 ohm resistor or even inductive loads. The truth is, they don't sound that good either. If your amp is set to 16 ohms and your pumping 100 watts into a 16 ohm load attenuator, your theoretically matching your load to your amps Output Transformer. That is supposed to get you the correct frequency response and provide a natural effect. the truth is, that by the time you reduce the power level to the point where your satisfied with the volume, your more likely to be disappointed with the tone quality.

I have not read it yet , except what you posted above, but plan to. In my case I'm not interested in turning my 100w stack into a bedroom amp but I do want to play it live in local clubs. The original poster is probably looking to bring his volume down even more for home use so he could benifit from the same attenuators. Anyway, there are some amp manufacturers that state attenuators won't hurt the amp and then there is the paragraph you posted above. Different attenuators accomplish their job different ways. Does that make a difference? I don't know. The Ultimate/Ho is 37 ohm I believe and it has to be plugged into AC power so it is a re-amping device. The THD Hot Plate and the Alex have to be purchased rated at whatever ohm rating your head/cab are. The Faustine Phantom can be adjusted to 8 or 16 ohm. An attenuator is the only way I think I'll get to play this amp live though.
As for Gilbert, I got permission to shoot the show last year but was told no flash! So I shot about 1000 or so pix of him as well as Andy Timmons opening for him usig my trusty Nikon DSLR and F2.8 lenses wide open I've pretty much gotten used to seeing Paul Gilbert in those iso headphones to the point where he might look strange without them Both him and Timmons were great! I got to shoot Satriani the year before. Don't know whats in store this year for NAMM but I'm counting down the days and the Nikon gear will be there with me again

[Robert Burns]

You should put together a photo essay of your best 50 pics! Then post
them here. See ya in 9 days! :-))

[roodyrocker]

You should put together a photo essay of your best 50 pics! Then post
them here. See ya in 9 days! :-))

Well, I don't know about posting 50 pix but perhaps I'll post a few of the ones I shot the last two years (Satriani/Gilbert/Timmons, maybe some YJM too
Hope to see you at NAMM next week!