Removing a tube to allow for more out of an amp

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8/11/2000 6:06 PM
LiteTraveller	Removing a tube to allow for more out of an amp I've heard some words about the ability to remove a tube in order to keep the volume down and allow you to turn it up to get more out of it. In short, I live in an apartment and am not able to turn up my Blues Deville to get what I need out of it. Can I remove a tube so that I can get what I want w/out having to crank it?     Thanks for your time.

 

8/11/2000 6:13 PM
anonymous	remove all tubes and you hear nothing

 

8/14/2000 1:47 PM
anonymous	Hey that's funny, that always appears to work,   it works even better if you just remove just one   power tube out of a pair, the only problem being the smell and the smoke far outweigh the lower volume.     just kidding

 

8/11/2000 6:37 PM
frankclarke	No, not with only 2 power tubes. You need a power attenuator to do what you want. You can make a simple resistive load volume reducer yourself.

 

8/11/2000 7:40 PM

JM

What you need for apartment use is about 1watt of output. Some people use power reduction devices like the Marshall Power Brake or the Hotplate but especially at high levels of attenuation (which is what you are looking for) the sound often fails to live up to the quality many people are looking for. I would suggest getting or building an amp in the 1 watt range like the Moonlight amp on the AX84 site or at least getting yourself down into the 5watt range which is quite loud actually but would get you a lot closer to the kind of volume that you are looking for.     JM

 

8/12/2000 2:44 AM

Cybermonk

Do you *really* think that a 1-watt amp pushing a given cab will sound better than a 50-watt amp attenuated to 1 watt, pushing the same speaker?     Suppose you use the 50-watt amp with the Altair, Power Soak, Hot Plate, Power Brake, Load Box, and Power Glide set to 1 watt out. Or Aiken's reactive load circuit.     Suppose instead of an "evil soak" you use the same model of speaker (an additional speaker) in a speaker isolation cabinet put away in a closet (unmiked, as a load) and tap a 50th of the amp's output using a resistor along with your monitoring cab (so that the resistor is almost invisible to the amp).     So we have the following setups:     A. 1-watt amp   B. 50-watt amp with resistive attenuator   C. 50-watt amp with reactive attenuator   D. 50-watt amp with dummy cab as attenuative load     These all drive the same monitoring cab with a low-wattage guitar speaker.     Common views predict the following order of desirability, most desirable first:     A. 1-watt amp   D. 50-watt amp with dummy cab as attenuative load   C. 50-watt amp with reactive attenuator   B. 50-watt amp with resistive attenuator     It is possible that A sounds slightly better than D, which sounds slightly better than C, which sounds slightly better than B -- so that a 1-watt amp sounds significantly better than a Power Soak taking a 50-watt amp down to 1 watt, all driving the same cab with the same intensity. I'm skeptical -- show us all the proof publically in the form of a hi-fi (128 Kbps mono) MP3.       http://www.amptone.com - power attenuator FAQ

 

8/12/2000 3:23 AM

Brad

Or, to answer your question in the manner I believe it might have been asked.....with a four tube amp...most of the time you can remove two tubes and theoretically cut the volume in half. PROVIDING you rebias and make any necessary adjustments to it. A 100watt amp should be 50 watt...and that's still DAMN loud. A 50w amp should be 25...and THAT'S still damn loud. USUALLY a two-tube amp is in a push-pull configuration (or some variation which will not allow you to pull just one tube and have it still pass a signal..effectively.) Even if you DID pull a tube out of say...a 50W amp, and made it 25W...that's still gonna be pretty damn loud for your neighbors. An attenuator SUCKS tone. A tube(s) HAS to be pushing itself to get the smooth, round tone that people crave. A low...low...low...wattage amp, as others have suggested, might be just the thing. Keep your blaster for the gigs...crank the 5 watters for the midnight inspiration(and it can still get loud for a neighbor at 5 watts). Look up "dB" and see how watts in a guitar amp relates to power, relates to loudness.(Sorry, but tube tone is tube tone....if it ain't bouncin' those little electrons out all over the glass for the collector to pick'em up WHEN it has time....it ain't tube tone!)   BUT, that's just my opinion.   Brad

 

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