i have a question... instead of an attenuator, could you use a rheostat in its place?.. like an industrial rheostat w/ a large current rating or something... ,i got to use a rheostat once in a lab experiment.. btw, (for the peeps who isn't familiar what a rheostat is), its a type of potentiometer (variable resistor)..
i've seen some diagrams of some signal attenuators & it does contain some reactive elements, like capacitors & inductors.. now if those elements are present in a circuit, they actually change the frequency of the signal.. now a rheostat is just like a large variable resistor, only the amplitude(volume) of the signal is affected.. so could a rheostat be a substitute for an attenuator, or do we need to change the signal frequency if we want to mimic a signal wave at lower volume?
Attenuators
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Big Bad Bill
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You can't use an ordinary rheostat because once you've got it at a certain resistance point, its static. Apparently a valve amp requires a 'dynamic resistance' because its current/voltage output changes with the signal going into the amp and the speaker characteristics are dynamic too (my layman's understanding). Having said that wasn't EVH's Variac just a rheostat? His amp did blow up all the time though...
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teokiatuan
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legacy owners,
im about to purchase one very very soon now
my question is
is the legacy ok for bedroom practice without an attenuator?
or is the minimum setting already too loud?
i tried it at a shop overseas before, but i was allowed to turn it up so i didn't pay attention to its minimum volume.
im about to purchase one very very soon now
my question is
is the legacy ok for bedroom practice without an attenuator?
or is the minimum setting already too loud?
i tried it at a shop overseas before, but i was allowed to turn it up so i didn't pay attention to its minimum volume.
teokiatuan ,
i 've got a thd attenuator and you can go to a no volume at all,to practice is perfect.....to record a good tone....mh mh mh......it is a no no
anyway there are a lot of attenuators around the market and i think most of them can turn off your amp until no volume.
to practice this thing is perfect
i 've got a thd attenuator and you can go to a no volume at all,to practice is perfect.....to record a good tone....mh mh mh......it is a no no
anyway there are a lot of attenuators around the market and i think most of them can turn off your amp until no volume.
to practice this thing is perfect
No, the Legacy is no amp to play in the bedroom without any noise reduction. The Volume as all the other knobs cut completely of when you turn them to 0 and the amp won´t sound anything close to good. Just if you go a little above 0 the amp will get its sound immediately.
And for the volume, tht´s gonna be too loud.
You can do 2 things:
1. Get an attenuator,
2. or get a G-Major, as you can adjust the volume before the power amp with it. Like this you can turn the volume knob up. This will make it possible to play in a bedroom.
And for the volume, tht´s gonna be too loud.
You can do 2 things:
1. Get an attenuator,
2. or get a G-Major, as you can adjust the volume before the power amp with it. Like this you can turn the volume knob up. This will make it possible to play in a bedroom.
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Stephen Brown
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teokiatuan
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Looks promising, lots of features too, but damn, its steep.
500euros before shipping/tax
Teo
500euros before shipping/tax
Teo
you know on ebay you can find 'ghetto' attinuators
basically it goes thru the fx loop and just quiets the gutiar signal so you can turn the amp louder
i wouldnt suggest them though and it would probably do my harm to your tone and amp then good.
basically it goes thru the fx loop and just quiets the gutiar signal so you can turn the amp louder
i wouldnt suggest them though and it would probably do my harm to your tone and amp then good.
It really does scare him! I watched him cower in the corner when I cranked his 5150 to 11 and hit an E power chord!Big Bad Bill wrote:I couldn't tell you for sure because hearing is more than just sound waves in your ears, its about perception as well. Also, the ear doesn't respond in a linear fashion to sound volume but has very complex characteristics which I'm not sure have been characterised. My perception is that even at bedroom levels, my amp sounds very nice-just like the tones I hear on CDs, when I have turned it up, I just can't tolerate the volume to make an objective opinion on it (and neither can my neighbours)-it scares me!randomnessman wrote:hmm bbb you say that with the 5150 there is no difference in tone, when it is turned up, only volume?
The nails down a blackboard THD Hotplate tone scared me more, all that cash to ruin a great amp tone!
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Big Bad Bill
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I don't like loud things and really big things too like those massive cruise ships or wide open spaces like the beach at Bamburgh. Its very odd. You can imagine how scared I get when I take my undies off 
Sorry for dragging up an old thread, I'm looking into attenuators for my Mesa Mark IV and wanted to fill in a couple gaps here..Big Bad Bill wrote:I couldn't tell you for sure because hearing is more than just sound waves in your ears, its about perception as well. Also, the ear doesn't respond in a linear fashion to sound volume but has very complex characteristics which I'm not sure have been characterised. My perception is that even at bedroom levels, my amp sounds very nice-just like the tones I hear on CDs, when I have turned it up, I just can't tolerate the volume to make an objective opinion on it (and neither can my neighbours)-it scares me!randomnessman wrote:hmm bbb you say that with the 5150 there is no difference in tone, when it is turned up, only volume?
The ear does not respond linearly to volume, and this is very well documented. It's generally referred to as the Fletcher/Munson effect. At high volumes, your ear becomes more sensitive to the very low and the very high frequencies. This is why when you dial your tone in at a low volume, then crank it up at a gig it can sometimes come off as overly harsh.
Second, in another thread you insisted that power-tube distortion is snake-oil because you couldn't detect it when turning up your 5150. Two things about this:
1. The effect of volume on your tone is going to be incredibly dependent on the specific amp design and how hard it drives the power tubes. Some amps will have a relatively transparent power section and will sound more or less the same at higher/lower volumes. Some amps are night and day when the volume knob crosses 6. A lot of vintage Fender amps in particular sound completely different at high volumes, and even most more modern tube amps seem to really come alive at a certain point. For years I thought my Mesa Mark IV just had an awful clean tone, but it turns out I wasn't practicing at high enough volume.
2. You said that your 5150 sounded exactly the same at high and low volumes, but you were wearing earplugs. If you were wearing earplugs, you weren't being affected by the Fletcher/Munson curves, so the tone you heard is inacurrate -- the sound everyone else heard was different than the sound you heard.
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teokiatuan
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Great postKremlin wrote:Sorry for dragging up an old thread, I'm looking into attenuators for my Mesa Mark IV and wanted to fill in a couple gaps here..Big Bad Bill wrote:I couldn't tell you for sure because hearing is more than just sound waves in your ears, its about perception as well. Also, the ear doesn't respond in a linear fashion to sound volume but has very complex characteristics which I'm not sure have been characterised. My perception is that even at bedroom levels, my amp sounds very nice-just like the tones I hear on CDs, when I have turned it up, I just can't tolerate the volume to make an objective opinion on it (and neither can my neighbours)-it scares me!randomnessman wrote:hmm bbb you say that with the 5150 there is no difference in tone, when it is turned up, only volume?
The ear does not respond linearly to volume, and this is very well documented. It's generally referred to as the Fletcher/Munson effect. At high volumes, your ear becomes more sensitive to the very low and the very high frequencies. This is why when you dial your tone in at a low volume, then crank it up at a gig it can sometimes come off as overly harsh.
Second, in another thread you insisted that power-tube distortion is snake-oil because you couldn't detect it when turning up your 5150. Two things about this:
1. The effect of volume on your tone is going to be incredibly dependent on the specific amp design and how hard it drives the power tubes. Some amps will have a relatively transparent power section and will sound more or less the same at higher/lower volumes. Some amps are night and day when the volume knob crosses 6. A lot of vintage Fender amps in particular sound completely different at high volumes, and even most more modern tube amps seem to really come alive at a certain point. For years I thought my Mesa Mark IV just had an awful clean tone, but it turns out I wasn't practicing at high enough volume.
2. You said that your 5150 sounded exactly the same at high and low volumes, but you were wearing earplugs. If you were wearing earplugs, you weren't being affected by the Fletcher/Munson curves, so the tone you heard is inacurrate -- the sound everyone else heard was different than the sound you heard.
