Another new toy. Reactive Attenuator.

ezietsman

So, with my new amp not having VVR built into it, I had to have another way of dealing with the volume issue, so I got this:

Its an attenuator and if you cast your eyes to the back panel, you'll see there's a line-out on it.But what does it mean? It means, if I connect this device between my amp and the speaker cabinet, that I can get a line-level signal from it that I can send to my laptop. On the laptop I can run speaker simulation so hence I can play my amps, through a variety of microphones and cabs that I cannot afford otherwise, in the comfort of my room, with headphones. Yes, I can turn the sound down completely.

Also, this thing is reactive so it shouldn't mess with the sound of the amp as much as a purely resistive attenuator would. Of course, there's usually some kind of drawback, which I'll probably learn of in time, but I think this way gives me the ability to play my amps at night, as loud as I want to, without actually bothering anyone, which is good, because mostly that's the only time I have to play them. I can also use any effects plugins I can get. I'll try and make some clips for your perusal in the near future.

rikus

Nice!!

Keen to hear your impressions on how this compares with your VVR equipped amps.

ezietsman

Rikus wrote: Nice!!

Keen to hear your impressions on how this compares with your VVR equipped amps.

First impressions. Using to to quiet down my 18 watt sounds a bit different than the VVR does. For getting the amp down to quite low levels, my first impression is that they sound similar but the VVR sounds 'better'. Of course, I've been playing this amp with VVR for 4 years and I've used the attenuator for 20 minutes. This attenuator still eats your trebles but it has a treble bleed switch that allows you to add some treble back in (3dB or 6dB) when you turn it low. I felt that 3dB was enough even down to very low levels.

Both of these systems at low levels sounds worse than at high levels ?

I also tried the line-out into the laptop, into a cabinet simulation. This worked really well. Still playing around with this but my initial attempts produced excellent results. I'll post some clips when I get time.

rikus

That's good to know!

ez wrote: Both of these systems at low levels sounds worse than at high levels ?

No surprise there! Can't really trick a valve into *thinking* it's cooking...

ezietsman

Rikus wrote: That's good to know!

ez wrote: Both of these systems at low levels sounds worse than at high levels ?
No surprise there! Can't really trick a valve into *thinking* it's cooking...

Well the valves are cooking but you need the speaker to move too.

rikus

ez wrote: Well the valves are cooking but you need the speaker to move too.

:-[ Fair enough!

ezietsman

Here's a little demo for you. My 18 watt amp, normal channel, Volume on 8, Tone on 8, used my Tokai Les Paul. Speaker impulse is a G12M in a 4x12 cab and the mic impulse is SM57. So my amp was cranked up, running at full power directly into the laptop and no animals or neighbours were harmed. I added some reverb in the DAW.