THD Hotplate/attenuator

[harm0n20]

hey i bought a mesa boogie triple rectifier back in december and i absolutely love the thing. i was looking for a way to get that awesome distortion tone you get when its cranked for more moderate volumes for say recording and practicing. a friend suggested a THD hotplate for this. so do any of you have one of these for your recto? are you satisfied with the tone it gives you and how much it cuts the volume?

 

[Platypus]

Lots of threads discussing this but I'll give you my 0.02

I own one for my DR, I think it sounds pretty good but not so much at super low volumes. You will notice a little tone sucking, just the nature of the beast... plus you're not getting speaker movement so that's another factor..

Bottom line, if you want to control volumes for messing around at home and you don't mind a little tweaking to overcome the loss of tone (use the bright switch for example), then I think it's worth every penny.

Your recto was made to play loud, but I think this is a great alternative personally.

 

[Brewski]

I agree with Platypus, I have one, and use it for quieter practicing. If you're playing a smaller venue, you might find it handy to help dial your volume down to a comfort level befitting a smaller room. It's also helped me maintain domestic tranquility at home.

You can get your recording/home practice tones with pretty reasonable tone, although, you do lose a bit of tone by not moving air with your speaker cones. Try to think of it's use to thicken and add tone at lower volumes, rather than sucking tone from full volume. Both statements are true, but you'll have more tone than you had at lower volumes and it is a great tool.

I've found it useful on all of my amps.

 

[screamingdaisy]

They're great. I couldn't imagine not having one.

That said, it's not a miracle worker....ie, it won't give you killer tone at bedroom volumes. When I use it live to knock the volume down a bit it's great. For at home practicing levels it squashes your tone and kills you're clean channel.....but I still feel it sounds better than running the master volume at 1.

 

[cvansickle]

You have to be creative with your eq settings when using the HotPlate. I find that the lower in volume I go, the more I have to kill my mids and boost highs and lows. But, there is no way I could play at home without one. And like Daisy said, the tone is a tradeoff. I agree that the HotPlate sounds better than the Mast volume at 1.