L-Pads for quieting amps

[robertm2000]

Has anyone ever tried an L-pad (especially high power ones) for turning down the volume of a loud amp a bit? I found this one at Parts-Express:

L-Pad 50W Mono 3/8" Shaft 8 Ohm | Parts-Express.com

and it seems like it might work. Most of the folks in music stores have "power soaks" they recommend more and at $300+ I'm not surprised. Any thoughts?

[randyc]

Sure, common practice "back when", mentioned here often in your context. Used only with vacuum tube amplifiers, of course.

Be careful since the ratings of home stereo equipment are not necessarily consistent with industrial ratings. As a general rule, commercial stuff is specified as "peak" power rating (because recorded music power levels are of intermittent power levels) and should be de-rated by at least 50%. If you're looking at an L-pad rated at fifty watts, it would be useful for a twenty watt amplifier, for example.

L-pads have been VERY useful, to me, between the output of small amplifiers and the loudspeaker (with an SM-57 in front of the loudspeaker connected to the PA system). Obviously the L-pad impedance should be the same as your loudspeaker impedance. I wouldn't recommend an L-pad with high power amplifiers - those using dual or quad speaker configurations.

The "power soaks" and similar products (there are many) are silly. Why lug around a 50 watt vacuum tube amplifier and generate a lot of waste heat to make it sound like an 18 watt vacuum tube amplifier? Sound reinforcement systems are so powerful and so inexpensive that there should be no reason for a guitarist to carry much more than a Deluxe Reverb or Ampeg Reverberocket + SM-57 + small stand.

Better still, a small but powerful solid-state device - even less expensive than all of the above unless you're going for distortion.

Cheers !

[SamBooka]

What wattage is your amp?

I will just mention that I have a 50W weber minimass that was .. um.. 75$ I think. Used ones show up on ebay for less of course. EXCELLENT attenuator.

Randy has a good point about having the right amp for the job. That said, if you ONLY have 100$ and want to use your Deluxe Rev as a headphone amp then attenuators do have their place. They are also more usefuly for rock and blues players where the WANT power tube distortion without knocking down walls.

I wont comment on LPads without knowing what your amp is.

[robertm2000]

My amp (the one I want to use the L-pad with) is a 15 watt Crate tube amp.

I looked up the Weber Minimass and even new it's a better value than I thought - $90. Not bad.

I'm not going for distortion - just a bit of cut in the volume at low settings of the volume knob. This amp has one of those weird tapers that give you 90 per cent of the power between 0 and 1 on the knob. Frustrating in a way. But the amp sounds very good, just a bit loud.

Thanks for the info - it helps to have more options than I have thought of.

[robertm2000]

Found my device - the 50 watt L-pad from Parts-Express does pretty much what I wanted. It cuts the volume down enough to meet the requirements. The guitar's tone changes a bit with increased attenuation. But it seems to stay in the same ballpark as without the L-pad. So for the moment it does what I want. I'm thinking of picking up a 5-watt tube head eventually.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I throw one of these over the amp:

[robertm2000]

I'll give you this - you have good taste.



My amp looks better in black than I do...