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Couldn't find the right emoticon (emoji?) in the readily available options. It would have been a peace sign.
I can totally get behind what you're saying then. A guy who strictly uses an attenuator for his grind is going to work the amp a lot harder than a guy who uses a stomp box and no attenuator or a guy that turns down the amp and plays a little cleaner because, with no attenuator, getting that loud isn't an option.
I only jumped on this because my own personal amp is built expressly to burn up power tubes. The amp will survive, the tubes may not
It's using el84's so the expense isn't so bad. But I don't worry about the amp. I run it into an attenuator all the time now that I don't get much chance to go wide open. Too bad because it does sound and "feel" best that way.
In truth I think most attenuators are easier on amps than speakers. All other things being equal. Most attenuators have a more moderate impedance curve than speakers. A typical guitar speaker can have almost a hundred ohms of impedance in the HF where voltage spikes occur. That will kill your OT way faster than a purely resistive load or any more moderate load. I think the reason attenuators have a rep for killing amps is because it's one more thing in the path that can go wrong. Combine that with the probability that the amp is set up LOUD and it's easy to see where a bad cable (twice the possibility with an attenuator because there's another cable involved), a mistake in connection or just straight up brain farting and ending up playing the amp cranked into an open load are way more probably when an attenuator needs to be accounted for. In other words, it's not the attenuator hurting any amp, but an attenuator is often present when one these unfortunate things occurs.
I can totally get behind what you're saying then. A guy who strictly uses an attenuator for his grind is going to work the amp a lot harder than a guy who uses a stomp box and no attenuator or a guy that turns down the amp and plays a little cleaner because, with no attenuator, getting that loud isn't an option.
I only jumped on this because my own personal amp is built expressly to burn up power tubes. The amp will survive, the tubes may not
It's using el84's so the expense isn't so bad. But I don't worry about the amp. I run it into an attenuator all the time now that I don't get much chance to go wide open. Too bad because it does sound and "feel" best that way. In truth I think most attenuators are easier on amps than speakers. All other things being equal. Most attenuators have a more moderate impedance curve than speakers. A typical guitar speaker can have almost a hundred ohms of impedance in the HF where voltage spikes occur. That will kill your OT way faster than a purely resistive load or any more moderate load. I think the reason attenuators have a rep for killing amps is because it's one more thing in the path that can go wrong. Combine that with the probability that the amp is set up LOUD and it's easy to see where a bad cable (twice the possibility with an attenuator because there's another cable involved), a mistake in connection or just straight up brain farting and ending up playing the amp cranked into an open load are way more probably when an attenuator needs to be accounted for. In other words, it's not the attenuator hurting any amp, but an attenuator is often present when one these unfortunate things occurs.
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