If I were to plug my cranked tube amp speaker out into a small practice solid state to temper the volume, would I harm my tube amp? Or would I create a sonic black hole? Or would it be fine? Thanks in advance.

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"Up and down that road in our wornout shoes talkin bout good things and singin' the blues"-SRV

Sounds like a recipe for something to blow up or melt-down in my book. I may be wrong but big tube dimed into little S.S. doesn't sound too good.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Yeah you'd blow the output transformer on your valve amp. Reason being that the input of the solidstate amp isn't offering enough resistance to the signal.
You'd probably fry the input of your solidstate amp too.

If your using a amp up to 50watts with cathode or fixed bias, get one of these installed.

http://www.hallamplification.com/main.html?src=%2F#2,2

They are cheap $50 as opposed to $2/300 for a garden variety attenuator. There is talk that lowering the voltages across your amp can cause the getter (silver/grey coating on the top of the valves) to disintergrate over time.

If you attenuate and run on max or near max, you're going to go through valves fast anyway.

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Thanks guys. Glad I asked before I tried it. What are your thoughts on l-pads like the little sucker on ebay?

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"Up and down that road in our wornout shoes talkin bout good things and singin' the blues"-SRV

I think the Ipad is a nonsense.

It takes all the portability of the ipod and throws it out. You don't get any benefit from it being bigger, aside from a bigger screen.

Cumbersome nonsense. If I want to watch a film, theres a big telly in my front room, I don't need to use a oversized mp3 player to watch it.

I am however currently smitten with my Iphone. It does everything aside from put the kettle on and use flash player.

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No no and no

Lmao. Sorry niki L pad not I pad. But I agree bout the iPhone very handy.

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"Up and down that road in our wornout shoes talkin bout good things and singin' the blues"-SRV

J-Bo

I did think 'why's that user asking about the Ipad on a guitar forum?'.
Thanks for the clear up

I've never seen a Lpad in use. I briefly read through this
http://www.colomar.com/Shavano/lpad.html

And notice one phrase repeated, "these often cannot survive the power requirements of a Pro-Audio system and are intended for less demanding home audio applications".

When you consider the difference in perceived volume between a 100watt guitar signal and a 100watt stereo signal, I think they are a big risk. 100watts of guitar sounds ten times louder than a 100watt stereo, I think mainly because the signal isn't mixed down. Your guitar signal could tear the thing apart.

How it would fail is down to chance too. It could just pass the signal straight through, and you'd be fine. Though at full volume and probably the neighbours screaming at you.

It could just as easily just block the signal completely when it broke though. Then you run the risk of blowing your output transformer.

Not the kind of risk I'd like to take. I'd like to hear if anyone has used one too. I imagine using a 100watt rated Lpad in a 25watt amp wouldn't be too risky. I wonder how it would affect the sound of the guitar.

I don't blame you for not wanting to shell out on a attenuator. The price of them is ridiculous. They all change the sound of the system (when you lower the power to a speaker thats selected for a power rating you're going to change sound). The modern answer to this is to add a load of eq to the attenuated signal, further changing the sound.

You could always build your own, their not too difficult. Lots of good info on this page.


http://stonemarmot.com/rants/?p=63

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No no and no

Thanks niki. The L pad I was looking at is rated for 50watts and my amp is just 22 so not to worried about it failing more about tone loss. But building my own is very interesting thanks for the info.

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"Up and down that road in our wornout shoes talkin bout good things and singin' the blues"-SRV