trinityamps.com

Hello everyone! I was hoping to get some opinions on what would be the best option to reduce the 18 watt's volume for use in my apartment. Which is the better alternative, an attenuator or the vrm mod? Ive never had the chance to try an attenuator so i have nothing to base my decision on. What have you guys found to be the best method in terms of tone and cost?

You could install the VRM for a lot less $$ than an attenuator AND if you play a lot at reduced volume, you'll extend the life of your o/p tubes. Having said that, I've never used an attenuator so ...
Stew

My attenuator I built cost less than $50 in parts and I love it.

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Les

http://www.soundclick.com/unimind

Thanks for the link Unimind, looks like a pretty cool diy project! As for the vrm mod, are you still able to get that great 18 watt tone at "bedroom" playing levels? If so, i may have to look into that further. I have a nice pair of old tubes in mine and would definitely like to extend their life as much as possible.

If you want to get down to really low volume levels, and still have the amp sounding good, in my experience you will need both a VRM and an attenuator. Then you adjust each one down to the point just before the amp tone starts to get mushy,

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Thanks for the info fellas! I guess i know what i need to do now to keep the neighbors happy! Looks like i'll be buying the parts for the vrm and a new attenuator in the very near future. At the moment im studying the resource section for tips on raising the gain in the tmb channel slightly. Great site with alot of useful info and helpful folks, thanks again.

1+ on Zaphods comment - I have my 18 watt scaled (whole amp) and it does a great job of knocking the volume down quite a bit, but even scaled down to a couple watts its stupid loud through my 4 x 12. I used a cheapo resistive attenuator I made (a few power resistors in series/parallel on a switch) to knock it back a few more db and together that sounded pretty good at condo friendly volume levels - not perfect but quite good.

It loses a little sparkle and sounds a little more compressed than nothing but still very good.

Before that I tried a straight resistive attenuator to take it all the way down to bedroom levels and it killed off a lot of highs - better than nothing and it was quiet enough to play without the neighbors calling the police but did not sound all that great. Then I installed the power scaling and together with a small amount of resistive attenuation, was quite a bit better

But in a quest for even better tone at condo levels I then bought a BBQ Mass Lite to complement the scaling.

It will knock down the sound all the way to a whisper by itself and with both high and low frequency rheostats you can dial down the lows and highs separately which helps you keep some of the sparkle you would otherwise lose. It sounds not bad by itself in fact - not as good as scaling most of the reduction plus taking the last few db down with the it, but if I could only do one thing and I needed the amp to work at bedroom volumes it is pretty good.

Using the Scaling and the BBQ mass together on the other hand is pretty darned good - In fact I can't see doing much better in many respects because you are simply dealing with physics at some point and cannot get an amp to sound the same quiet as it does blasting no matter what you have in your bag of tricks

somehow double posted

Thanks Lindz, I just recieved a mini mass this week and it does do quite a nice job of bringing the volume down. I think i will still look into the scaling option though, just because I can't stop tweaking things...lol!

I've just went to the Checkout from Partsexpress to build my attenuator as recommended by Unimind & they want close to $40 to ship these few parts to Canada
So that brings the cost Just under $100 ,Im wondering If the BBQ MiniMASS 25W Attenuator will work just so good or better ,It is less then a $100

I built one of those homebrew attenuators (thx for pointing me in the right direction, Unimind) & it's great for a quick & dirty & cheap (in my case) solution.....but IMO any of the MASS attenuators would be much superior in pretty much every way.

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- This Space For Rent -

After doing some digging I found a few cheap Attenuators that use a L pad
I'm eyeing this one http://www.ebay.com/itm/LITTLE-SUCKER-A ... 786wt_1397
There's a couple good reviews as well

I have been very pleased with the BBQ 50 watt Mini Mass that I picked up a couple months ago. It does a nice job of bringing the sound down to reasonable sound levels while keeping the volume cranked. If I try to get down to "bedroom" levels it does alter the tone quite a bit. Kinda like having a thick blanket over the speaker. Overall I am pleased with the purchase but would like to do the VRM mod soon.

For anyone Interested in building a Atteunater ,like the mentioned here in this thread ,you can find a similar L PAD here in Canada ,along with some of the other parts needed
http://qcomponents.ca/product.php?produ ... =88&page=1
http://qcomponents.ca/home.php?cat=88

Some of you have metioned losing the high end when attenuating down to bedroom level. A lot of attenuators have this problem. Some have the abillity to reduce highs and lows saperately and some have treble bleed caps in them (i.e. the lower you go the more treble freqs are allowed to bleed/pass through). The one I built uses the treble bleed cap and if you find the right value (I think I have 12uf in mine) it becomes almost transparrent. I have recorded clips with and without the attenuator, super loud vs bedroom level, and they are virtually the same. I think I get a smidge more bass at the super loud levels.

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Les

http://www.soundclick.com/unimind