thd attenuator whats peoples views

[roland_rat]

Hi,
Been wondering about attenuators for home use of amps.  I kind of decided if I get one it would be a THD one.  What im not sure is just how good they are.  And at a cost of best part of £250 it nearly the same price as a tiny terror.   How many of you guys use or have tried attenuators for  home use?  Would you reccomend?


Thanks

[TwilightOdyssey]

Own it, love it, use it for home practice religiously.

[sambo]

TO- have you ever tried an Ultimate Attenuator? They look very interesting.

[TwilightOdyssey]

TO- have you ever tried an Ultimate Attenuator? They look very interesting.

Yeah, it's a great product. I can get the THD locally, it had a great rep, and after speaking with them on the phone I was sure that it would work fine for my application.

[MrBump]

I want one, but they do seem to be very expensive for what they are...

[Ian Price]

I want one, but they do seem to be very expensive for what they are...

Same as me. Not sure what difference it would make as I mainly use a 5 watt amp in the house.

[MrBump]

Well, as mentioned above, that's the other option - get a TT or a Blackheart.

[indysmith]

I use my HotPlate at home, but only on -8dB because past there it starts to suck tone, and it gets a weird compressed glassy buzzy kind of tone.
It's not really made for home practise, and it's not gonna let you crank your amp and retain semi-decent tone.
With it set to -8dB i can only get the master volume on my JCM800 to about 0.5 for neighbour-friendly volumes.
I can tell you that I wholeheartedly prefer the sound of the amp quiet to the sound of it cranked but attenuated to home levels.

[gwEm]

i don't use an attenuator, and for this reason:

i used to use a 100db sensitive speaker (like Vintage 30, G12H etc etc). i'm using a 97db one now (greenback, hot100, g12-75) and that 3db less makes all the difference.

i'm quite happy using a 97db speaker and the master on low volume (1-2) for home usage now - a bit of practice and recording. i've a 50w marshall.

i'd try a g12s-50 (an even less efficient speaker), but apparently they don't sound very good

[Twinfan]

Master volumes work fine for me for practice/rehearsals/gigs - I've no need for a Hot Plate.

[Matt77]

Get MartinW to powerscale it. - whatever amp that is too loud -
It should be cheaper and better in my experience

[Gary]

I have two hotplates - an 8ohm for my Fender HRD and a 16ohm for my 65Amps Marquee. I love them but to be honest I wouldn't recommend them for home use. They work great to shave a little bit of loudness off, say -4 or -8 which is perfect at gig/ rehearsal levels. For home you would need to take it down to at least -16 and this is where the tone will probably suffer. Another thing I've noticed is that the Marquee seems more sensitive than the HRD in this respect. I've had the Fender down to -12 with no ill effects but it starts to become noticable with the Marquee at anything below -8.

I would suggest you're better off with a master volume for your situation.

[_tom_]

Yeah I had one for a while but its not really that useful for home playing if you want the power tube saturation thing, anything under -8 sounds a bit rubbish to me just because you arent pushing the speakers enough, its all fizzy and cr@p. Worked quite well on my HRDx though, because that thing had a really touchy volume control and it was easier to set it at about 2 and adjust the volume with the hotplate.

[hamfist]

I have used a Hotplate with various different amps, and had different experiences with all of them.

 With the AC30, it was quite a considerable tone sucker.

With the 50W Plexi clone, it worked really very well. With the PPIMV on the amp, as well as the Hotplate, I could get very, very nice tones at any volume.

With the Orange Rockerverb 50, I preferred the lower volume tone just using the MV on the amp, so didn't ever see a need to use the HP at all with this amp. The RV50 does seem to work exceptionally well with its MV though.

I sold the Hotplate. If I buy another attenuator it will probably be a Sequis Richter Control (£279 at Digital Village). These are only a tiny bit more expensive than a Hotplate but I have heard several absolute glowing reports about them. Even going as far as saying they are on a par with the Ultimate Attenuator (which is of course way more expensive to import into the UK).

[roland_rat]

Great info guys.  Thanks very much.  I guess im going to keep my eyes peeled on ebay. If I can pick one up  at the right price 2nd hand I will give it  a try.

Thanks again
Gareth