Building an attenuator?

[aron]

FWIW I found that resistive simple attenuators like the Airbrake worked as well as any others. Just a different sort of "flavor". I still have my Weber Mass version - but in the end, I just use my pedals.

Aron

[DougH]

true, but f&m curves relate to human perception with regard to loudness and are often compensated for with a smile eq curve - that's what the loudness button on your hifi does - dips the mids - not what signal is sent to a loudspeaker and how it interacts with it.

as for treble boost calculations - that's why current drive popped in my head but i'm still a little fuzzy on that. but, yeah, life is short and eq works.

*gah!* i'm going for a walk while the coffee kicks in to spare you all any more of my incoherent rambling...

There are commercial units that have switches for adding some treble compensation. I think some of Weber's stuff might have this. With the Airbrake I notice a very slight treble reduction, but as others have mentioned, part of that is probably due to F&M. In the end I try not to agonize over it too much. I can always compensate with the treble or presence control if I feel it needs it.

I think an attenuator is useful for getting a little more out of your amp's output stage without being too loud. But I only use it to attenuate a few db. With my master volume amps it's only marginally useful, as those amps are tuned (by me) to sound good using the master volume as intended. With my lower wattage amps I find the attenuator more useful for doing late-night playing and so forth. I don't use master volumes with those amps as their "sounds" depend on pushing the output stage. That's the key for needing an attenuator in the first place- if you need to push the output stage to get the sound you want.