Someone mentioned a 'power-brake' on here recently. I don't know what this is, but a the risk of making this question sound retorical......

Years ago I briefly had the pleasure of watching someone in a Pub near Dorking, Surrey, UK; playing Deep Prrple numbers, through a strat a a marshal amp. He used a device that looked as though it was between the amp and the speaker cab, that looked like a huge variable resistor.

Would that be a power brake? I presume it would be possible to use it to drive an old pre master volume amp right up into max overdrive whilst keeping the volume down a tad??

Yes, that's the Power Brake.

Its a power attenuator that lets you run the amp at full volume (like on a Plexi or Plexi reissue where there isn't a master volume) and the volume can be raised or lowered from the control on the front of it.

You're exactly right though, it runs between the head and the cab.

There are several other power attenuators that work better than the Marshall though; THD makes one called Hot Plate that come in different ohm ratings.

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The mind is like a parachute; it doesn't work unless its open-FZ

Adrian i was considering a powerbrake on ebay. From ipswich funnily enough. The guy wouldnt give a buy it now price so i deafed the idea. Their very handy tools for any marshall owner. You can use them with combo's too. You will wear your valves out in no time though.

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Yeah...I had one in the late 70's but it was called a Power Soak...and I believe it was from Tom Sholtz(?) of "Boston".
Same thing, though.

I had the Power Soak too...then my 50w Mk II Marshall kept blowing up and frying tubes. One day the tech finally asked me what I was doing to it and I said "Nothing...all I'm doing is using a Power Soak so I can run the amp at a reasonable level". He said therein lied the problem...Certain attenuators are really hard on amps. I've heard the Power Soak was the worst.

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The mind is like a parachute; it doesn't work unless its open-FZ

PJ
That problem would present itself if you were running the amp on 10 without an attenuator. The payoff for a driven output section is that you will get through valves like no ones business.

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