Favorite attenuator

[CEG85]

I had a Rivera Rockcrusher, and that thing was solid.
ran it with a NMV Plexi.

 

[itsme]

I've had a bunch including the Fryette. I didn't like any of them. Keeping the volume low and using a boost pedal always sounded better...

 

[Exo-metal]

Man I heard the vht was the trip. I haven't personally made a choice bc there is so many out there and it really is overwhelming. The VHT/Fryette experience usually is anything put through it sounds better so you know where I'm headed more than likely.

 

[Elric]

I've had a bunch including the Fryette. I didn't like any of them. Keeping the volume low and using a boost pedal always sounded better...

If your amp has a good master volume it might be the best option as long as you are not looking for power tube distortion. In the master volume scenario your amp’s OT is interacting directly with the actual speaker impedance curve of the cab it is not being subject to some different curve built-in to the Reactive load.

 

[DECEMBER]

"We keep getting asked if the Hot Plate attenuator is resistive or reactive.

There is a lot of misinformation floating out there, including a recent "article" on Reverb claiming that the THD Hot Plate is a resistive attenuator. I both phoned and sent emails to correct the writer of the article, but never got a call or email in return.

People seem to assume that reactive attenuators are something new, which they are not. We’ve been building them since 1994. Many assume that since the Hot Plate has been around for so long, it must be a resistive unit like the Scholz Power Soak and the Altair PW-5. (For the trivia minded, the PW stood for "power waster".)

The Hot Plate is fully reactive in three different “modes", as opposed to one mode like all the other attenuators claiming to be reactive. The bright, deep and light bulb switches let you select exactly how reactive it is, and in which frequency ranges and dynamic ranges the reactance is most prevalent, but no matter how you set it, it is always reactive in all attenuation modes and in the “Load” setting as well. It’s the only attenuator which does this.

Some attenuators like the Marshall Power Brake (no longer produced) use transformers instead of networks of resistors, capacitors and inductors, to do the dropping. The problem with this entire approach is that the only way that a transformer can reduce the power getting to the speaker is by creating an impedance mismatch, which is never good for the amp, nor does it ever sound or “feel” particularly good. With a Hot Plate, if you have an 8 ohm amp, an 8 ohm Hot Plate and an 8 ohm speaker, no matter how you set it, the amp is always “seeing” an 8 ohm load. It is the only attenuator that does this, which is why there are 5 versions. In each version, every single capacitor, resistor and inductor is optimized for that impedance.

Another aspect of this discussion that is worth mentioning is that the absolute safest load for any amplifier is one that is 100% resistive with no reactive element at all. The problem with a purely resistive load is that they don’t sound very good at all. Guitar players are used to the hearing the amp as it responds to the inductance of the speaker’s voice coils, the motion of the cones (causing a huge momentary change in the load), and often the effect of the compression of the air in the cabinet on the cone/voice coil motion, and thus on the load. So, more reactance is not necessarily a good thing, especially when it goes beyond mimicking the reactance of a speaker cabinet.

Over the past 26 years, we’ve sold more than 100,000 Hot Plates, making it the best-selling attenuator ever built. It’s also the only attenuator made that is recommended by other manufacturers. The Weber is recommended only by Weber. The Rivera is recommended only by Rivera. The THD Hot Plate is recommended my Marshall, Fender, HiWatt, Soldano, Bogner, Diezel, MESA/Boogie, and dozens of other amp companies. And, over 30 years, we’ve only ever had two people come forward, claiming that their amps were damaged by a Hot Plate. One was using a 4-ohm Hot Plate on a Marshall set to 16 ohms, which caused the output transformer to fail, just as it would have if he had run into a 4 ohm cabinet. The other had just had the output transformer in his Vox AC30 replaced when he started using a Hot Plate on his amp with the new transformer. He claimed that the Hot Plate had blown his new transformer. We paid to have the amp sent to us for investigation. It turned out that his "tech" had replaced his 30-watt AC30 output transformer with a 15-watt Fender Tweed Deluxe output transformer, which could not possibly take the output from a quad of EL84 tubes and was less than 1/4 the size of the original output transformer.

We hope this helps to dispel some of these myths."

THD / Andy Marshall Design

Gotta love all the internet know-it-alls that make statements about gear they've never used as if they were published facts.
How is the Hot Plate for silent recording? Everyone swears by the Suhr RL, but I've been working with one for a week now and the internal load makes the line out -> my IRs really mid-scooped with boomy bass. When a speaker (V30, MC-90) is connected to the Thru, the line out -> IRs sounds great, but defeats the purpose of silent recording. Unplugging the speaker and using the Suhr's internal load sounds terrible.
How is the Hot Plate's line out with IRs? More accurate/transparent/flat than Suhr's?
Can it hold up with daily 6-8 hour silent recording sessions using the internal load, with my amp usually on 45W, sometimes on 90W?
I don't need an attenuator, or even a line out, really (my Mark V has a slave out that sounds exactly the same as the Suhr's DI, and is equally affected by the connected load or speaker), just a dummy load that'll make the slave out sound more like it does when a V30 is connected, not like the bass-heavy and scooped sound of Suhr's load box. But there doesn't seem to be many options, so I'll buy an attenuator if I have to, if it will give me a proper load that the line/slave outs will sound right with.

 

[Geo]

Still have one of these, it's big and heavy.

 

[Ben Waylin]

Gotta love all the internet know-it-alls that make statements about gear they've never used as if they were published facts.
How is the Hot Plate for silent recording? Everyone swears by the Suhr RL, but I've been working with one for a week now and the internal load makes the line out -> my IRs really mid-scooped with boomy bass. When a speaker (V30, MC-90) is connected to the Thru, the line out -> IRs sounds great, but defeats the purpose of silent recording. Unplugging the speaker and using the Suhr's internal load sounds terrible.
How is the Hot Plate's line out with IRs? More accurate/transparent/flat than Suhr's?
Can it hold up with daily 6-8 hour silent recording sessions using the internal load, with my amp usually on 45W, sometimes on 90W?
I don't need an attenuator, or even a line out, really (my Mark V has a slave out that sounds exactly the same as the Suhr's DI, and is equally affected by the connected load or speaker), just a dummy load that'll make the slave out sound more like it does when a V30 is connected, not like the bass-heavy and scooped sound of Suhr's load box. But there doesn't seem to be many options, so I'll buy an attenuator if I have to, if it will give me a proper load that the line/slave outs will sound right with.

If you want "flat", slap a couple of heat-sinked power resistors across the amp's output, and call it a day..

Spoiler: You don't want "flat".

I built my reactive load to have this impedance curve.. peaking at 115Hz

 

[DECEMBER]

If you want "flat", slap a couple of heat-sinked power resistors across the amp's output, and call it a day..

Spoiler: You don't want "flat".

I built my reactive load to have this impedance curve.. peaking at 115Hz

I want it to match my speakers. My IRs are of my speakers, I made them with my mics, the same way I record the speakers. With the IRs loaded in the WoS plugin with everything flat and no power amp sim, and the signal from the slave out or the Suhr RL (they sound exactly the same). When a V30 and/or MC-90 is connected to the amp (or Thru on the Suhr RL), the IRs sound very close to the mic'd speakers. But unplug the speakers and just use the Suhr as the load (for silent recording) and it's all boomy and really scooped.
With a V30 vs MC-90 as the load, the DI sounds different, but not very much, not near as different as it sounds with the Suhr as the only load.
It claims to have the impedance curve of a greenback, but greenbacks have a huge mid/low-mid peak (like British speakers are with the excessive mids), certainly not scooped and bass-heavy.
So, flat, as in: I want my IRs to sound the way they sound with a proper load on the line out, not with boosted bass and scooped mids. Sending the FX send (not influenced by the connected load) to the interface/IRs sounds more like my actual mic'd speakers than sending the line out with the Suhr as the load.

 

[Ben Waylin]

I want it to match my speakers. My IRs are of my speakers, I made them with my mics, the same way I record the speakers. With the IRs loaded in the WoS plugin with everything flat and no power amp sim, and the signal from the slave out or the Suhr RL (they sound exactly the same). When a V30 and/or MC-90 is connected to the amp (or Thru on the Suhr RL), the IRs sound very close to the mic'd speakers. But unplug the speakers and just use the Suhr as the load (for silent recording) and it's all boomy and really scooped.
With a V30 vs MC-90 as the load, the DI sounds different, but not very much, not near as different as it sounds with the Suhr as the only load.
It claims to have the impedance curve of a greenback, but greenbacks have a huge mid/low-mid peak (like British speakers are with the excessive mids), certainly not scooped and bass-heavy.
So, flat, as in: I want my IRs to sound the way they sound with a proper load on the line out, not with boosted bass and scooped mids. Sending the FX send (not influenced by the connected load) to the interface/IRs sounds more like my actual mic'd speakers than sending the line out with the Suhr as the load.

I use V30 IRs blended with Celestion blackbacks as well, and exclusively use my home-built reactive load to record.

 

[Jccobb2]

Just got the St Rock react II. The attenuator is great, smooth knob sweep instead of clicks. Combined with the other features this thing is impossible to beat at the price point.

 

[Soundstorm]

Just got the St Rock react II. The attenuator is great, smooth knob sweep instead of clicks. Combined with the other features this thing is impossible to beat at the price point.

Ooh, I'm very curious about this one. Have you tried the original?

 

[Jccobb2]

Ooh, I'm very curious about this one. Have you tried the original?

I have not. It had good reviews though which was enough to take a chance on the V2

 

[wIsEbLooD]

sounds like you just need a line out box, not a load or attenuator.

 

[Elric]

If you want "flat", slap a couple of heat-sinked power resistors across the amp's output, and call it a day..

Spoiler: You don't want "flat".

I built my reactive load to have this impedance curve.. peaking at 115Hz

LOL. That's a speaker frequency response curve, not a speaker impedance curve.

 

[mcstinger]

LOL. That's a speaker frequency response curve, not a speaker impedance curve.

Who cares?