VH4 @ 50 Watts

[sherpa_man]

can i run my vh4 at 50 watts me room really cant take the volume i need to get the tone cranked out. I used to have a 50 watt single recto and at loud room volume i could get a good clear/heavey tone. With my vh4 i need to crank it alot louder to get the tone i need. If i run the vh4 at 50watts (if its possible) would i still have to crank me amp to what i do now or would i be able to get tones at a lower volume ?

 

[Ailean]

You can do this by pulling the fuse on a pair of power tubes, however when I asked about it, it wasn't recomended to run that way long term.

May I suggest an attenuator?

 

[sherpa_man]

You can do this by pulling the fuse on a pair of power tubes, however when I asked about it, it wasn't recomended to run that way long term.

May I suggest an attenuator?

yeah i was thinking that ill have to have a proper look into it. You can pick them up cheap on ebay.

 

[Ailean]

I'm still waiting for my amp to turn up so I can't give first hand knowledge with a Diezel, but I use a Hotplate with my Orange Rockerverb 50 and get pretty good results, although it is true that the more you squash the sound the more your tone gets changed by the hotplate, but the first few clicks are fine.

I've heard good things about the Ultimate Attenuator, but they are pricey, and I just coughed up for a VH4 and cab, so the bank balance is hurting a bit

 

[sherpa_man]

I'm still waiting for my amp to turn up so I can't give first hand knowledge with a Diezel, but I use a Hotplate with my Orange Rockerverb 50 and get pretty good results, although it is true that the more you squash the sound the more your tone gets changed by the hotplate, but the first few clicks are fine.

I've heard good things about the Ultimate Attenuator, but they are pricey, and I just coughed up for a VH4 and cab, so the bank balance is hurting a bit

bet it is only had mine a few weeks. I seem to be having problems with my tone cant really get a good good clean tone seems to be "mushy" when playing chords maybe a valve problem but there arnt any fuses out

 

[Ailean]

Sorry dude, I'm of no use to you there really, but in general my thought process would be:

Pickups: Is my amp outclassing my pups and showing them up?
Preamp tubes: Are they giving me enough clean headroom / are they a good clean tube?
Pedals and effects: Take them all out of the equasion
Cables: Am I using good quality cables? (if you have a Diezel I really hope you are )

Others will help with amp settings, but one thing I noticed with my current amp is that I need to open up the volume control past a point to really get the cleans to shine.

I'm sure you've already thought through all that but I figured I'd say it anyway.

 

[Anonymous]

I have done two things with my VH4 to lower the wattage.
1). I replaced all of the power tubes with Smicz TADs. These are one watt power tubes.
At four watts I could run the amp as hard as I liked and it sounded amazing.

2). I also tried replacing the power tubes with THD Yellowjackets. These are EL-84 power tubes with an octal base converter so that you may slip them right into the VH4's power tube sockets. No biasing is needed with either of these options.

With the THD's the wattage is 9 watts per tube, so you would be able to get your VH4 down to about 33 watts RMS using four THD's. Using only two may not get you the clean headroom. Keep in mind that each amp reacts differently to different makes, and types of power and pre amp tubes. You may like the tone, or possibly not like it. The only sure way to know is to try it out.

There is a third way, but it may wear out your power tubes faster. Combine a set of whatever power tubes you have in the VH4 now with a pair of THD's.
Best of luck.

 

[Neuro]

I have owned my VH4 for several years and it has been a great amp. However, even with a master volume and independent channel volumes I never felt like the amp sounded as good as when the master is turned up to around 2-3 O'clock and things are cranking. I know this is nothing new: Power tube saturation is where it's at for me anyway.
Unfortunately, in most venues my band plays, that is way to loud. I have owned or tried pretty much every attenuator out there (Hot Plate, Leash, UA, etc.) except for the Faustine Phantom and up until last week the Koch Load Box II. I has basically made up my mind that Attenuators pretty much suck and don't sound good. I thought I owed it to myself to give a high-end attenuator a chance: I wanted to buy the Phantom but with a 6 month wait it was just to long. So I bought the Loadbox II last week and WOW. I run it at 15% of the amp's power and it's still loud but sounds better than ever.

At the end of the day, you need to be careful with Attenuators and for most people that don't do any kind of maintenance regularly on their amps, I can't say I recommend them. But if you are willing to deal with the wear and tear on your tubes, I HIGHLY recommend the Koch Loadbox II.


Diezel VH4 (JJ KT77)
2x12 Bogner (Greenbacks)

How did you like the Ultimate Attenuator? I'm currently using that live and have had some good results. I can tell a difference, given the amount that I have to turn down, but I thought this attenuator did a great job! Just the dynamics being lost is the biggest issue for me. Can you tell me how much better the Koch Loadbox II is for you? Thanks!

 

[synchu]

Huh, had been preaching on Koch's Loadbox II ever since I got it few years ago Glad someone else has the same opinion. It is bar none the best attenuator, IMHO, around Cause it doesn't have a sound. I don't know how Dolf Koch did it as I don't know how Peter Diezel did it with the amps, but the results are great.