load attenuator upgrade?

[rarebitusa]

Being an original owner of a MKIIC+ HR... yes before scooping mids was in fashion it's no surprise my volume settings have been decreasing over the years as my cabs got smaller and the family larger. Along the way a friend indefinitely lent me a vintage Scholtz Power Soak and that has served its purpose well.

Recently been poking around the load box market and certainly there are advancements along with alot of marketing. Just curious what folks are running with their MkII setups, especially if they have experience/comparisons with an old Power Soak. TIA

 

['59fatburst]

I just ordered a Rivera Rockcrusher for use with my Mark I. That amp really needs some juice before it gets to singing so I needed something to tame the volume and get that singing tone at a more reasonable volume. Once I've had some time with it, I'll report back. It's my understanding that the Rivera is one of the best units available.

 

[Thaymz]

I use both a Torpedo Reload and Torpedo Captor. Both are excellent sounding and I prefer the Reload from a functionality side.

Reload:
- volume is variable (silent to full)
- 2 Speaker outputs if you want to run two cabs at the attenuated volume

Captor
- Speaker Thru (full volume) or fixed attenuation at 20db

Captor is a much more affordable option so depends on your price point. I personally love the volume feature of the Reload and would choose that over the two if price point was being considered.

 

[rarebitusa31]

now able to post again... thanks for the input

 

[gonzo]

i've been using a Weber Mass Lite with my MKIIb for about 12 years now...
works like a charm.

 

[Don]

I'm using a THD Hot Plate with a Budda Twinmaster. This amp is only 18 watts but has no master, has a low gain preamp and gets al of it's overdrive sound from being cranked up loud! I can attenuate up to 8db before the sound is affected too much for me. At that point, it's still pretty loud.

I'd like to try a Weber Mass.

 

[CoG]

depends if you just want to rock out in your basement at a lower volume or if you have a DAW recording setup and you're trying to go to headphone/monitor levels.

If the latter you can get very, very nice older Palmer PDI and ADIG units for a few hundred bones used since the two notes stuff because the new hotness. you just run the output of the palmer box into a cab sim and there you go. This is what I do, but you have to be happy playing thru headphones or monitors.

if you just want to take it down to "less loud" honestly the technology hasn't improved *that* much. reactive loads are great but you don't notice the difference in all playing situations, you mostly notice if you have a pretty open-sounding amp with a lot of sparkle and you're playing mid-gain. I have used a Rivera Rock Crusher and it's great but the price point is hiiiiigh compared to an old school weber mass or something. And I have also found that my Mark III is the amp whose tone is *least* affected by attentuation, since Marks tend to be pretty compressed already and there's a lot of ways to juice the highs. OTOH I find Rectos do not attenuate well at all, all the harmonic goodness seems to go away.

 

['59fatburst]

Well, I thought I'd update where I'm at with the attenuator situation... I had a Rivera Rockcrusher and I thought it worked REALLY good. It maintained the essence of the sound of the amp until it was attenuated down to stupid quiet levels, at which point, it sound squished. Not a big surprise. It had a nice variation in attenuation levels and was quite versatile. My only problem is that the unit was large. When I'd take it out, I'd balance it on top of the amp or sit it behind it. I felt like I wanted something smaller. So, I sold the Rivera and purchased a Weber Mass 200. This was a much smaller unit and sat comfortable on top of the Mark I. The problem with the Weber, in my opinion, is that it sounded like *** and didn't work that well. You didn't really notice much attenuation as you went down the dial. It seems as though it didn't knock off much volume until you were silly low in the range. At that point, it didn't sound very good. Also, it would always smell like something was burning. I thought it was just mine but, apparently, others have experienced this problem. Now, I have to find another Rivera. Lesson learned...Don't sell something until you're sure you no longer need it. I think the best attenuators that I've used so far are the Rivera Rockcrusher and the Kelley unit.