Attenuators

[harddriver]

This won't happen with a loud amp. The closest to transparent is a good reamping system the Power Station but is overkill for your application. You could try a Suhr RL with a small, solid state power amp. This works great most of the time.


Higher SPL is responsible for both of these. You can't have it both ways!

Having said all that if it's a high gain, master volume amp then forget the above. Turning down the MV real low works better in general.

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Everything stated here is 100% correct.

You cannot push the speakers hard at bedroom level.......One can only shave off some volume to about -8DB without large effects to the tone of the amp due to the Fletcher Munson curves.

For bedroom playing Zen recommendation of using a Suhr load box to an IR then re-amped via studio monitors and or a power amp would be your best best.

 

[SFW]

The Power Station 100 is killer. I use mine all the time. With that said, when you lower the volume, you are not going to move the speakers like when you have volume. So, the tone will change. There is no getting around that.

 

[innogator]

Another vote for the PowerStation. I have a PS-2A, the Boss WAZA TAE, and a couple Weber Mass attenuators.

I shot the Fryette and Boss out by matching the volume of each with the volume of an amp and switching between them (raw amp, Fryette, Boss). The Fryette did lose a little high end but could be compensated to match the raw amp pretty closely with the presence. The Boss might be better for recording or could be nice for live gigs with built in FX and IRs but didn't sound as natural and lost a little of the feel to me. The Webers are great compared to most passive attenuators but it definitely loses high end as you turn down and the Treble boost function sounds very artificial.

 

[RossJohnDavies]

sorry if i missed this in the info sheet but still only for use with TwoNotes IRs or can we use any IR from any company?

Thanks for getting in touch. Great question!

There is no IR tech inside this unit as it is an all analog device - however it does include Line Outs, a complementary copy of our GENOME software and 24 DynIR Impulse Responses for adding Cabinet emulation in your DAW (or via the GENOME Standalone Application). You can certainly use any software or hardware IR Loader of your choosing with this and GENOME also features a dedicated non-DynIR IR Loader which can load virtually any IR in your library. Let me know if you have any other questions concerning this!

 

[errrrrl]

For attenuation I prefer the Fryette PS100 but for direct recording using IRs n stuff, I prefer the Waza TAE. Both are good units

 

[JerEvil]

I’m a “thrice sold it” PowerStation owner. Good unit with lots of functions. I still ended up not really attenuating and just using it to power my rack stuff and it was just too vanilla for that.

I recently got sent the RedSeven AmpCentral Evo that I need to dig into but it is also a load box and attenuator.

Also adds effects loop and IR Loading as well as built in noise gate. I’ll certainly report back my finding a but I can tell you the DI’s I’ve heard from others in comparison, this is a killer (seemingly) unit.

 

[harddriver]

I don't want you to think that an attenuator won't be beneficial in your situation it just depends on what level of volume is considered Bedroom for you. It will be balancing act and it can be done. You can set the attenuator to about -4 or -8DB and then crank up your amps master volume to the level you want to play at which with a 100 watt amp with a good balance between the running the master up and keeping the attenuator at no more than -8db I find I get really good LOUD TV volumes that still push the speakers some and gets a nice full fidelity tone and feel but at lower non deafening volume....but it is not what I define as bedroom volumes.

I am assuming you are referring to an SLO or Mezzabarba which have good master volumes since you are looking to pick up an SLO or ish amp.

Here is my 69 NOS plexi build 100 watt run at wall voltage with a Lar/Mar Type PPIMV with a PEC pot set to about 5(noon) Half way up, the THD hotplate set to -4DB running into one Marshall 4x12 with Celestion Heritage 12H-30 speakers. It was fairly loud but still pushed the speakers enough without being deafening and the tone is not really affected by the THD except for volume control. I have two attenuators a Rivera Rockcrusher and an old THD and I find anything beyond -8Db you start hearing that dampening effect from the Fletcher Munson curves. You can hear me picking the strings at times to gage where the volume level was at in my office room whcih was a small room.

In this video I bypassed the THD set to 0DB and set the PPIMV to 2 or 9 0'ocolock, In this video you can hear me hitting the strings while picking notes and chords. This is about a quiet as I play my amps.....anything lower than that doesn't drive the speakers to get a godd tone IMHO.


Here's another 100 watt plexi from an old RT member into a Fryette PS 2 I believe. I think you would get good results with the Fryette PS or a good Attenuator IMHO it will just be that balancing act between the master and the attenuator I mentioned.


If you are trying to retain all your dynamics for midnight level bedroom playing that's just unrealistic as Zen mentioned earlier then you are going to have to look into running the amp into a Suhr Load box with an IR and then reamp into power amp drive studio monitors....even this won't be the same experience as standing in front of an amp a volume but it will sound good and the IR will respond as a speaker being driven hard at volume.