THD Hotplate

[Patrick from Davis]

If you crank the attenuator all the way you can play at relatively low volumes, your ears shouldn't ring.  The Fender Hot Rod I was talking about is 40 Watts and that is enough to blow the doors off of something without it being attenuated.  Living in an apartment, it was the only solution for me. 

Yes, some one hit on a point that is interesting, our ears distort when listening to high volumes.  This is one of the reasons Recording Engineers don't like high volume amps.  The mics can record what is being played, but we hear it differently at high volumes, so musicians tend to complain about the recording sucking.  Technically it is your ears hearing loud noises differently.
Patrick

 

[Fish Out of Water]

Aww hell!  Now I don't know what to decide. 

Another question that I have about the hot plate is how do you decide on which ohm hot plate to get?  Do you match it to your speaker(s) or what??

 

[DocNrock]

Match it to your amp's output impedence.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

Your amp 's output and your cabinet, or speaker/s if it is a combo, should all have the same impedance.  The Hotplate should match that.  Just look on the speaker or the amp, or grab the manual, it should also have it.  I have to say it was a great purchase for me, and I suppose my neighbors as well.
Patrick

 

[GoDrex]

http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm - - you might want to check these out

 

[Watershed]

I have been using one for probably 10 years now.  I have the 8 ohm model.

It has two attenuator knobs. 
The one on the left attenuates in increments from -0dB to -16dB. 
When you have the left knob set at -16dB, the right knob becomes active, allowing you to go from the -16dB, down to a whisper.

Personally I think it's great.  I use it with a Mesa Maverick, which has a lot of nice tone to be had from the power amp section.  The two really work well together.  Brown, mean and crunchy.  Lots and lots of dynamics, much of which can be attributed to the amp.  The Hot Plate just allows me to get it at reasonable volume levels.

I also have a Mesa Studio .22 which doesn't fit as well the HotPlate.  With the Studio .22, you already have a huge amount of preamp gain with the lead channel, and the clean channel breaks up too much when you have the power amp anywhere near full throttle.  So, I think it really depends on the amp you intend to use with it.

I have a friend who played through it for a few minutes, and immediately went out and bought one.  It's now an integral part of his rig as well.
He's running a Nomad, which seems to be able to stay clean up to high volumes.

Basically, if you want to get the power tubes to break up and not annoy anyone within 100 yards, it's wonderful.
If your tone is all about preamp distortion, or you are into super clean jazz tones, probably not very useful.

Hope that helps,
James

 

[elgravos]

Hi Drex,

Also on the market for an attenuator at the moment but $300 for a hot plate / bad cat leash is kinda steep.  That minimass almost sells itself at a third the price.

What are your thoughts on it?  Any idea how it compares to the competition?

Cheers.

 

[GoDrex]

I have no experience with any other kind. I got the Mini Mass based on the price and what I heard other people say about it. Of course there are all different opinions, but what I read a number of times was that the tone was better and that people felt it was because it uses a  speaker mechanism as the load. When I first got I thought there was something up with the volume knob - it had a really rough feel when turned. But I learned that this is normal for the type of mechanism it is. I use mine all the time, and I do think it sucks some of the tone. I feel like you lose some of the sparkle, but I think if you're just cutting the volume a little bit instead of a lot, it would be less noticeable .Whenever I switch it to bypass the true sound of the amp is really amazing, but even my 18 watt amp is too loud for my little room most of the time. If I really crank the amp it's still kind of loud even with the attenuator. I think it's not really meant for lowering it to quiet levels, it just is meant to tame a really loud amp and let you get that power tube distortion.

this is a good review of the Weber Mass 100 (and it compares it to the THD)

http://www.legendarytones.com/weberma.html

btw - I got mine on Ebay so I wouldn't have to wait. If you order from Weber I think it takes a while to get it because they're made to order.

 

[elgravos]

Cool, thanks for the input.  At under a hundred bucks it sounds almost like a must buy.  I just want to tame my egnater rebel 20 so I can push the power tubes beyond "appartment" levels.  That thing is deceptively loud but I don't really need a ton of attenuation either.  Not in the mood for paying out for a hot plate that costs more than half the price of the amp though!

 

[Superlizard]

For the record, I once owned one of those Z-Vex Nanohead amps... 1/2 watt, all tube - 'bout the size of a stompbox.

With a 12" speaker plugged into it, and with it cranked, it was almost as loud as a loud TV.

Never underestimate the power of the t00b.

 

[GoDrex]

Cool, thanks for the input.  At under a hundred bucks it sounds almost like a must buy.  I just want to tame my egnater rebel 20 so I can push the power tubes beyond "appartment" levels.  That thing is deceptively loud but I don't really need a ton of attenuation either.  Not in the mood for paying out for a hot plate that costs more than half the price of the amp though!

what is that amp like with the watts turned down?

 

[tfarny]

I have a 'killer ant' 0.25 watt tube amp and I occasionally want to use the attenuator (same Weber model as Gary's) on it - it's a lot louder than a loud tv! But it's cool because I get a lot, lot of nice OD, and it costs less than some of these OD pedals. Just wish there was an EQ of some kind on it.

I agree that the Weber sucks tone, but less than the straight resistor load attenuator that I used before.  If you just want to go from 'too loud' to 'loud', it's awesome though. For actual quiet playing, get a vox valvetronix or other emulator amp, tube amps just ain't quiet.

 

[tfarny]

Oh yeah I want to know about the egnator too - I played one at GC and hated it, but it was an impossible listening situation and I was fighting the guitar (US tele) the whole time. Maybe it is just complicated and i wasn't getting the right sounds out of it. The design is really intriguing.

 

[elgravos]

Egnater is good.  Still breaking it in so no final opinion as yet but for 600 bucks I can't really complain.  Seems very versatile.  Not too sure how the "watts" pot interacts with the rest of the amp in fact so far I feel a little let down on that front.  It certainly does not play the role I expected as it works very much in tandem with the master vol.  For example, if I increase the watts from 1 to 20 with preamp gain on full and master at 1 it doesn't change much in the sound at all, volume or otherwise.  I'm guessing it's the sort of functionality that starts showing once the master is pushed (at least I'm hoping that's the case) and probably mostly in relation to clear sound headroom.  On the low vol side I'm pretty happy with the clean sounds for now and I can certainly reach metallica levels driving the preamp at conversational levels - i.e. I can hear my wife telling me to turn it down from the other room.  That's a lot of gain from such a small amp and at very low volume.  I didn't expect to get that far into high gain territory without adding an overdrive.  The EQ section is nice too, the interaction is right down my street and really responds well to my guitars.  I'm finding it really easy to dial in a good sound.  Then again, this is the simplest amp I've had in a while so that's probably not surprising.  The coolest part is the tube mix.  I'm really loving that.  I'm running it into an avatar 2x12 with one vintage 30 and one G12H30.  It's a recession proof solution for multi track recording (especially guitar track doubling) -  I switch guitars, speakers, mics and tubes, I can track one side on 6L6 and do another take on EL34s and have to pretty different sounding amp tones...  also the actual mixing of the tube sets is very cool too.  Sweet spot is around 1pm on the dial.  Also just noted that EL34s are way better for soloing - a lot more presence and bite.  I always thing of tubes in relation to chords rather than leads and had never noticed that before.  It's obviously a lot easier to A/B that sort of stuff when you've only got the one amp.  Final comment is that it's very transparent when you put some gear in the front end.  I've ran a tubeman and my Keeley modded DS1 straight into the preamp in (with a very clean sound) and been extremely pleased with the results. 

The only real bummer so far is that the effects return doesn't seem to behave like a power amp in as I would have liked a way to bypass the preamp as well - but maybe that's just the tubeman's output level - will need to test that a bit more.

Yep, all in all, great value for money.  Now to push that power section...