Attenuator suggestions

[Danhedonia]

If I don't get an attenuator soon, I'll lose what's left of my hearing.

Looking for suggestions focusing on transparency and hoping for under $250.

[HP Hovercraft]

How much power are you talkin'? They're generally pretty expensive.

 

This will work with combos: http://www.drzamps.com/products/brake_lite.html

[TomCTC]

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HP Hovercraft wrote:

 

How much power are you talkin'? They're generally pretty expensive.

 

 

 

This will work with combos:

http://www.drzamps.com/products/brake_lite.html

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Exactly what Id suggest, just screw it inside your combo, plug it together and let it do the rest. 

 

If you have a head + cab situation, look into a Weber Mini Mass. Not too expensive, and great quality sound. IIRC, they come in 15, 25 and 50 watt configurations. If your amp has more wattage than that, just sell it because with an attenuator you're pretty much putting training wheels on a motorcycle. 

 

[TomCTC]

^ Yeaaaaah, that's nowhere near the same.

[boytbpc]

I've tried a few, my favorite is the Ultimate Attenuator.  I didn't like either of my Webers that much.

[alien]

I like thd hotplate, very tweakable, and has a bright and deep switch/mode that both sound good.

Like GMD i used to hate verb but with hotplate i love verb!!!!!!

[imbuedblue]

I don't currently own an attenuator, but I've played through several belonging to friends. I've never been a fan of overdrive pedals, so attenuators have been on my radar for a long time. Unfortunately, I haven't been too impressed with most of the lower end models I've tried. IME, you really need to lay down some bread to get an attenuator that will retain the sound and at least some of the feel of a loud amp over various levels of attenuation. Also, you need to tweak your normal amp settings to get the most out of any attenuator.

I'm a huge fan of Weber Speakers, but their attenuators were the absolute worst I've played through. The Dr. Z Airbrake was okay with certain amps and sucked balls with others. The THD Hot Plate was all right at minimal levels of attenuation, but required a lot of amp tweaking to deal with what it does to the highs and lows. The Alex Attenuator and the Rivera Rockcrusher blew all of the other ones away. They both retained more of the amp's natural tone. The Alex seemed slightly brighter to my ears than the Rockcrusher--even though the Rockcrusher seemed to lose some of the lows--so one may work better than the other depending on your amps and tastes. The Aracom sounded killer to me, but I've always declined trying it with my own setup because the price is just way beyond what I would ever spend.

Unless something better comes along in the sub-$500 price range, I'll probably get a Rockcrusher to use with my AC30H2 before too long.

[Danhedonia]

River Rockcrusher: $499.00 at GuitarCenter, $799.00 at Sweetwater.

Huh.

[imbuedblue]

FWIW, I've seen a few Rockcrushers go for under $300 on eBay recently.

[mmolteratx]

I got my RockCrusher on sale for like $350 in I guess March of 2012. The studio pot blew up (as in, literally caught fire and burned itself out) back in January though and I haven't been able to get a hold of Rivera since February, when they said they'd sell me a replacement pot and I never heard back. Haven't been able to find an exact match anywhere else, so it's been sitting unused since then. Really starting to piss me off TBH, and I think even if I do manage to get a replacement pot, I'll move it on and grab something else. It does sound pretty good up until -16dB or so though, when you get some really noticeable loss of top and bottom. I really would like to use it more, and the guys at Rivera seemed friendly enough (the guy on the phone told me it had actually been a relatively common problem, and they had changed the design slightly after the Chili Pepper's kept blowing theirs up on stage), but their service blows.