Built-in Cab Clone position...

I have a Mark V (90 Watt head and 2x12 vertical Recto cabinet) and a Cab Clone. I am very happy with it. It sounds great and records great and has very low noise if the Cab Clone is a few feet away from the head or powered monitors, etc.

I also own a JVM 410 Combo which is a very nice amp. I prefer the MV for tone but there are a few features that Make the Marshall really convenient. The foot switch is one of those but the reason for my post is the built-in emulated speaker output.

In the JVM, the emulated output is after the individual channel volumes but before the master volumes. Of course, one very nice advantage of this is you can get a strong signal to the audio interface without turning the amp up. It can actually even record silently in standby mode but I am interested in hearing the amp, just not very loud. I looked at the manual for the MV35 (and the Triple Crown, which I think was the same) and it seems that the emulated output is after the main volume. I see you can easily turn the speaker off but, again, I am looking for recording with the speaker on and the emulated signal being rather strong but the speaker output somewhat quiet.

So, my question is...
Is there a drawback I am not seeing to taking the emulated output before the master volume? Maybe Mesa had a good reason for the way they did it. I don't know if they read these forums but maybe this would be something they could consider.

I have looked at a few different solutions including load boxes (too much money just to have the speaker not as loud), headphones from the Cab Clone or DAW, unplugging the speaker and monitoring through the DAW but nothing really is ideal.

I saw a Bugera attenuator on Sweetwater and wondered if it would work to put it between the Cab Clone live speaker output and the speaker cabinet. Then I am getting the full signal with emulated speaker from the Cab Clone (which sounds pretty good to me) and an attenuated signal to the live speaker cabinet. It is only $99. I don't know about the quality of it. The $99 doesn't seem too bad for just the load box/attenuator function. There is also a Jet City product on Guitar Center that looks the same but is about $239 or so.

I wonder why they didn't include a speaker attenuator on the Cab Clone to begin with? It seems like it wouldn't be that much extra work.

Is there anything I am missing as a possible solution to play relatively quietly and send a strong signal to the DAW?

The later in the chain your signal output for recording is, the more of the amps character you get. If you took the signal from before the OUTPUT control for instance, then you won't have any power amp colouring in your output. Their cab clone was also designed to work on the signal to a speaker, and handle those loads. So to build one into the Mark V:35 that operated earlier in the circuit would mean building a totally different "Cab Clone" as opposed to using the existing design. (Though, Mesa has had emulated recording outs from preamps and other amps in the past, so I'm not sure why the sudden redesign and rebrand happened).

You probably can't run the Cab Clone in the loop, I'd assume it's not set up for those small line level signals. But you could maybe take some sort of splitter box and run half of it into your interface and through speaker impulses to do the job of the Cab Clone, then the other half could go through to the effects Return and be affected by the OUTPUT control.

Attenuation might do the trick, though it will mean you're cranking and working your power tubes just to have a higher send level but a quieter monitoring level.

What was your issue with monitoring either from your monitors or you headphones from your interface? That's the easiest solution I've found.

I don't like wearing the headphones because I am moving around a lot between the amp, pedals, DAW, and even switching guitars and the headphone cord is a little bit of a hassle. Plus I just find them a little uncomfortable when trying to play. The cord gets in the way, etc. I do use them sometimes and I am able to get things accomplished but I just prefer not to wear them.
I never liked monitoring through the DAW in the past because of the latency but I just realized that I could put the audio interface in the direct monitoring mode and (in theory) there should be zero or very little (3ms or less) latency. So I am really glad you mentioned that. My old interface didn't have direct monitoring but I just got a UR44 a few months ago and had not thought about direct monitoring. So thanks for the help! I will give that a try.

Awesome! I was wondering if latency was going to be the issue as I was going to suggest changing audio buffer size or other tweaks before investing more money. But the UR44's direct audio monitor should be a great fit for your scenario hope it works for you!