amp attenuator
What is that? It’s what I call the Amp Can. It goes between my guitar amp’s output and the speaker to cut the signal’s volume. Why? Because tube amps sound better loud, but that means that, well, it has to be loud. Stick the Amp Can in there and you get all the benefits of cranking the amp without the hearing loss! How does it work?
It’s really pretty simple. It’s just an in jack, 4 resistors (big 20w resistors), and an out jack. This web site has a little more info on the specifics. I built the bridged-T resistive circuit since it is supposed to be better. Resistive designs are not as good as fancier designs because they tend to affect the tone a bit, especially at higher levels of attenuation, but I was only doing a little bit of volume cutting, so it’s not noticeable. You could also build one that’s adjustable, but I can’t buy the parts for that at RadioShack, so I went with a fixed one. It cuts the volume by 6 dB.
Now if only I had a lid for the can…