Anyone using an Attenuator with their MK IV?

The Boogie Board

Help Support The Boogie Board:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

GenoBluzGtr

Active member
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
34
Reaction score
0
Location
Maryland
I have been gigging with my MKIV for about a year. Love it's flexibility and tone.
I have recently begun using a Hotplate for smaller venues where the volume requirements put my master Volume low enough to "fizz out" a bit (2 or below).

Just wondering if anyone has any pros or cons to share on this.

Thanks!

Geno
 
As long as you are making enough at gigging to buy new tubes every three months and eventually an output transformer you should be fine. I hate power soaks of any kind as they suck the life from the tone. I would rather slave the amp out to a more manageble power amp or mike it in an isolation box if you are getting mixed through the PA. I have been hunting a Mesa 20/20.

Have you tried the tweed power?
 
All reports I have heard are that as long as u keep the pad 16-db or above, you will be fine with the tone sucking.

The 20/20 will give a completely different sound, it won't have the simul-class aspect to the sound.

I havent heard any cases of quicker tube burn, but it seems plasuible with as you are using the tubes more and hotter. However I would have thought the output tranny to be perfectly fine. The amp is designed to be played at loud volumes (not like cranked 7+ on the master volumes) but LOUD. Because it IS a loud concert-level amp. So naturally the load is all going to be on the hotplate, not the amp. And thats exactly what the hotplate is made to do.
 
I have a 4 ohm Hotplate I sometime use with my Mk IV shorthead, and I can tell you, don't worry about the tranny, it'll be just fine. It does however affect the tone no matter what it's set on. There is a certain amount of compensation for this if you use the the Bright and Deep switches, but even they are limited in how much they help. In the end you should really try to use one before you buy it, because some people like em, and some don't.
 
Boogiebabies said:
As long as you are making enough at gigging to buy new tubes every three months and eventually an output transformer you should be fine.

Absolutely un-true.
 
I use a Dr. Z Airbrake with mine. It works great. It is very transparent, except for the attenuation, I can't tell it is on. I had a 2 ohm hotplate which I used with a fender super reverb which was anything but transparent. I have not tried the 8 ohm hotplate so it may be great with the mk iv as the many reviews on it so state.
 
CudBucket said:
Boogiebabies said:
As long as you are making enough at gigging to buy new tubes every three months and eventually an output transformer you should be fine.

Absolutely un-true.


Whatever !!! Prove it.

How could you all be so naive to put a soak between your amp and speaker? You bought into $299.00 of tube chewing, tone sucking bunk.
 
I've been using a THD Hotplate with my Mark III for a while with no problems at all. No tube failures, fuses blowing, nothing.
 
From Soudsmith.com

DUMMY LOADS, TONE and FRIED AMPS
There seems to be a great deal of confusion among players, techs, equipment manufactures and the media, about load boxes, dummy loads, speaker emulators, simulators and the like. The uncertainty, lack of, and in some cases, mistaken information about these devices is truly scary.
We have all heard horror stories about favorite irreplaceable amplifiers that have been severely trashed when connected to a strange load device.

As a repair shop, we have seen more than a few guitar amplifiers that have suffered in this way. Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that non- speaker load devices or related products are basically flawed and should not be used.

After all, we were the first people in the industry to design and market a reactive load device, "the silent speaker". On the up side, there is no denying that including a dummy load in your rig can open up a wide range of new possibilities in the quest for the ultimate tone.

Before I start talking about the ins and outs of non speaker load devices, we had better define terms and make sure that we are all playing the same tune. Red Box's, cabinet emulators, simulators and the like are not load devices. They are equalizers that attempt to shape a line level signal or an amplifier direct out, so that the resulting tone imitates that which comes out of a speaker cabinet. The output of this type of filter can not drive a speaker: it is meant to input a PA/ recording board or an effects rack.

WARNING!!! When using this kind of device, your amplifier must be connected to a speaker or a dummy load. Failure to do so may result in serious amplifier damage.

Another type of speaker related product on the market is the attenuator: it is inserted between the amplifier and speaker to provide control of the signal fed to the speaker. In a future article we will talk about attenuators, emulators and simul ators.

LOAD: All amplifiers are designed and built to drive a load. The music instrument amplifier's load is the loudspeaker. It is important to understand that the final sound produced by the amp/speaker system is the result of the very strong interaction between the amp and speaker. You can't really talk about the sound of an amp or of a speaker separately, but only about the sound of the amp/load (speaker) combination.

Power tube performance in the output stage of an amplifier are critically dependent upon the load that the tubes are required to drive. At any given signal frequency or level the value of the load seen by the output tubes will determine the power output and not only the total distortion produced but also the kind of distortion (even order or odd order or the combination of both). On the load side, looking back at the driving amplifier, the load (speaker system) sees not only the driving signal but also the dynamic (changing) impedance (resistance) of the output stage which has a major impact upon load or speaker dynamics. .... Like I said, you can't talk about amp and speaker sound separately.

To understand how a speaker load and a dummy or non-speaker load work we must add two new terms to our technical vocabulary: resistive load and reactive load. A resistive load is exactly what it's name indicates, a resistor that is measured in ohms and is always the same regardless of the signal voltage across it, AC or DC. On the other hand, a reactive load is an AC resistance or impedance, as in speaker impedance, it also is measured in ohms but unlike the resistive load it's impedance (ohms) changes with the frequency across it.
The difference between these two types of loads is clearly indicated in the graph below. The graphs plot the measured impedance, in ohms of one speaker system and three non-speaker load boxes against frequency. The purely resistive load, the Power Soak represented by the broken yellow line maintains a constant resistance (4 ohms) at all frequencies. The reference reactive load is a Marshall 4 x 12 cabinet: solid thick yellow line. This is the classic speaker impedance curve: in the upper bass region the resonant frequency of the speaker causes the impedance to increase five to eight times the nominal four ohms impedance and the same range of increase over a much wider range in the treble region due to the voice coil inductance. The nominal impedance of a loudspeaker is measured at 400 HZ.

If you consider the impedance curves presented here in light of the conversation about the effect of a load upon an amplifier stage, it is easy to see that a resistive load device will make much greater power demands and create a very different frequency response and distortion products than the reactive speaker system. The increased power demand of a resistive load will greatly shorten the life of the power tubes and may damage the output transformer in some amplifiers. In the case of some reactive load boxes, the reactive element (an inductor) is not large enough or not damped or resonated. In this kind of load box, the rising impedance in the treble region can become so high as to effectively leave the amp unloaded. A cranked unloaded output stage can create very high voltage inductive peaks (several thousand volts) sufficient to cause catastrophic arcing in the tubes and in some cases, punch through the output transformer winding insulation ... end of transformer. In our opinion, the load box that is the safest and best performing sonically is the one that closely matches the impedance curve of a real speaker system. ..... if you have a load box that you are in doubt about, send it to us and we will measure it for you.

http://www.soundsmith.com/speak3.gif
 
One thing to consider on the previous post. It is from a web site of a company that sells a competing product. Of course, the verbage is very carefully wording to make it seem as if NO OTHER product will work correctly except the one they sell.
For any amplifier issue, the person I consider to be an ultimate authority is Gerald Weber. He is the king of amplifier makers (sorry Randall) and is pretty much the human encyclopedia of amp circuit knowledge, including speakers.

The following is an exerpt from a web site where he answers a simliar question. Notice, that he also mentions the "Kolbe" as a great product, but holds it up as an equal to the HotPlate... that is very telling, since Weber also sells dummy loads and attenuators, he is still extolling the virtues of other company's products.


Read and learn... The question:

From: Steve

"I have a 20/50 watt THD 'plexi' amp which I run either 2-EL84s or 2-EL34s. In order to get rich distortion and compression, it must be played loud. I would like to get that sound at lower levels, so I intend to purchase a THD HotPlate or similar attenuator. I understand that at lower volumes, the sensitivity of the ear changes according to a Fletcher-Munson curve, so I'm wondering what kind of speaker cabinet or system I should use to compensate at the lower volumes?"

WeberVST's response:

"Steve, that's true about the F-M curve and the correction needed at the lower volumes. I would have to recommend though, before using a power attenuator that you go through the calculations or have a professional amplifier technician advise you on its use with regards to steady state power handling and thermal dissipation capabilities of your output circuit. There's some 'sonic psychology' involved here, in that as you are listening comfortably to the lower, attenuated level of acoustic power, the output circuit is still giving it all it's got. So, since your ear hears the lower level, it isn't quite so evident that the output circuit is working so hard. The bottom line is that the output transformer is heating up, it might be in saturation alot of the time, you lose some bass due to the saturation as well as increased resistance of the windings due to heating, etc. As far as speakers go, depending on how much attenuation you want to dial in, you'll probably want to get the most effecient speakers you can find. Celestions and WeberVSTs are probably the most efficient speakers available at this time.

"great tone should be priority... so for that matter I'll have to steer you away from the GT Emulator, it's ok... maybe for recording. On a scale of 1 to 10, the Hotplate is a 10 and the emulator is a 4. No lie, it's that much better. I'm sure you will agree once you compare the two. And without extensive EQ treatment, the emulator is flat out useless."

"Nothing beats the sound of good output tube/output transformer saturation... makes my mouth water just thinking about it!"

"And like I said, you want to stay away from the GT Emulator... take my word for it, I used it for over 7 years. You can dial in a so-so sound, and probably get a good tone with some extra effort, but it's more of a hassle than it's worth. If I were you, I would be focused on the Hotplate or the Kolbe.

"As far as doing damage to your amp....I've never had a problem with any of my amps. I've only changed power tubes a few times in the last 15 years of playing and I only changed the tubes because I thought you had to do that at some point and I felt kind of silly with my old tubes. When I got new tubes, though, I could hardly notice a difference. Granted, I've played only, say, an hour a day on average over that period of time. However, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend using a properly designed attenuator to anyone as long as they're playing through a beefy amp.
In order to make your amp sound great through a soak or break you're obviously going to set the volume and tone controls a little differently than you would otherwise. With a high-gain amp like a JCM900 you'll probably notch the preamp gain down somewhat since the power amp section is likely going to be providing a large part of the overdrive and you don't want to fuzz the thing out completely. Just twiddle the knobs a bit and see what you like. On my Hiwatts I crank the HIgh, Mid, Presence, and Master up Full. The bass is about 1/2 and the two preamp volumes are on about 2/3. If I have the bass or preamps up any further than that the amp gets way overdriven and starts to compress too much."
 
Seems like you get what you pay for with the attenuators. That's why I went with the THD, good track record.
 
Boogiebabies said:
CudBucket said:
Boogiebabies said:
As long as you are making enough at gigging to buy new tubes every three months and eventually an output transformer you should be fine.

Absolutely un-true.


Whatever !!! Prove it.

How could you all be so naive to put a soak between your amp and speaker? You bought into $299.00 of tube chewing, tone sucking bunk.


I don't have to prove anything. You made a claim. You prove it. I don't care how much nonsense you cut and paste, what you're saying is crap. Even Mesa Boogie themselves have said that the THD HotPlate won't hurt the amp.


By the way, what are you 14 years old?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top