Weber attenuator?

[Radioboy950]

Anybody use a Weber attenuator?
I’ve been eyeballing Weber’s MiniMASS. I just ordered a Bias Rite from Ted, and thought I might buy a 50W MiniMASS. Supposedly they sound more “natural” and interactive than resistor types. AND I can also use this for a dummy load while tweaking, which should be quite handy.

[Plank_Spanker]

A lot of players have good things to say about the Mini-Mass, but keep in mind that any attenuator will color your sound. It all depends on what your ears are telling you, what you're using the attenuator for, and what you're willing to accept.

[Radioboy950]

A lot of players have good things to say about the Mini-Mass, but keep in mind that any attenuator will color your sound. It all depends on what your ears are telling you, what you're using the attenuator for, and what you're willing to accept.

Yep...understood. I really don't see doing any gigging with it...mostly for at-home use and as a speaker load for biasing and tube tweaking.

[Plank_Spanker]

Then you should be good to go with the Mini-Mass. I haven't heard of any reliability issues with it.

[Justaguyin_nc]

I had the MicroMass.. Weber boxes are heavy duty and I liked the lineout for silent home computer recording.. as plank stated.. it slightly darkens the sound.. but very slightly.. I'm to much of a rookie to call it a problem.. got for it..

[sunvalleylaw]

Instead of Webers I have side draft DHLA Dell'Ortos on my car. Oh, wait, OOPs, wrong forum. Sorry guys!



Excuse the stupid humor. I couldn't help myself.

[Radioboy950]

MiniMass arrived today. No complaints.
Tone really doesn't suffer, and I find the treble switch quite helpful.
I'm glad I remembered to get an extra male-female cable to extend the existing cable in the back of the amp, cause there is NO slack.
Very happy.
Nice box for $100.:

[tot_Ou_tard]

Where's Vood? He's a MiniMass expert.

[Plank_Spanker]

MiniMass arrived today. No complaints.
Tone really doesn't suffer, and I find the treble switch quite helpful.
I'm glad I remembered to get an extra male-female cable to extend the existing cable in the back of the amp, cause there is NO slack.
Very happy.
Nice box for $100.:

Excellent!

[warren0728]

Instead of Webers I have side draft DHLA Dell'Ortos on my car.

oh man....now i'm missing my 71 240z....that was a fun car to drive....it had weber carbs and was so fast! :

ww

[M29]

I just wanted mention that over last weekend at an amp show I got to hear an 18 watt GDS amplifier with a Weber attenuator the one with the speaker cone built in to the amp. This was a 25 watt. I had a 50 watt Weber MiniMass and was not completely satisfied with it on my 18 watt amp or my 5 watt Valve Junior. After hearing the 25 watt, I think it makes a good deal of difference for a smaller amp such as an 18 watt, 20 watt, or 5 watt to use the smaller attenuator. I did not think it would matter but I think there was a more open sound and less treble loss.

IMHO of course :-)

M29

[sunvalleylaw]

oh man....now i'm missing my 71 240z....that was a fun car to drive....it had weber carbs and was so fast! :

ww

That was a sweet ride! You should post that in the regrets thread.

[Kazz]

I just insert a single instrument cable into the line out of the effects loop and that cuts my output severely but the tone stays hot.

[Ch0jin]

I thought I'd resurrect this thread rather than starting another so similar

I'm wondering if anyone else has had expereince with different wattage weber attenuators with different amps. Or to put it another way....

Having just now been outbid on a 50W Minmass (y would u pay $177 AUD for a 2nd hand one when they are $100 USD before this months 10% discount brand new.......) I'm looking to buy new. As both a 50W and 60W tube amp live with me now, and I'm thinking of getting Epi Valve Jnr soon, my first thought was "H'mm, better buy the 100W version so i can dime everything in the house!" but then i read a post earlier in this thread that suggests the big power jobs sound bad with low power amps like the VJ. So, anyone else had any experience? It'd be uncool to have to buy the little 15W one for the VJ -and- a 100W one for the big amps.

On the plus side though, if I do buy a 100W unit, there's less of a reason for me not to buy a ceriatone Plexi 50 or JCM800...... I dunno, but I reckon everyone needs a vintage (looking) Marshall head in their rig and those Plexi's are true amp porn imo.

[duhvoodooman***]

I don't have any direct experience with the Weber attenuators across a range of amp wattages, but it would seem to make sense intuitively that you'd want to match up the two ratings reasonably closely. "Ranged" devices typically work best somewhere in the middle portion of their span, so I can understand where using a 100W rated attenuator to quiet a 5W amp might not be optimal.

On the other hand, since we're talking wattage ratings but the actual property you're trying to control with an attenuator is the output volume, maybe this wouldn't make that much difference. After all, a 50W amp isn't 10 times louder than a 5W--it's about twice as loud. So maybe you should get one of the bigger Weber units, experiment, and report the results here to us!

[M29]

Hello,

I had a W****Mini Mass 50 watt that I purchased from a very gracious forum member here and It worked great but did not sound like I was expecting on my Valve Junior. It sounded pretty good on my 18watt but not the VJ and that is what I wanted it for mainly.
I had heard that W**** offered the speaker and rheostat separately and I picked the two pieces up from a friend. I think you can buy them from the source for around 30.00. You may have to email them and ask, I haven't been to their website in a while. Anyway here is a picture of what I did with mine. It is a 25 watt version.



You may be familiar with the box...yup it is a computer power supply box. I put a piece of 1/4 inch thick Masonite (plywood would work) in the bottom to strengthen the flimsy box and mounted the speaker to that. Then I made a front face for it out of some aluminum I had laying around and mounted the rheostat and an on/off switch to it. If I remember correctly the speaker frame is 5 inchs. in diameter
It sounds very good, and if you have a tweed tone control set up in your Valve Junior it will be plenty for boosting the highs. You do loose a little bit of top end when the attenuation is way up. I don't even use the tweed tone control most of the time.

I will try to get a clip done this week.

M29

[Ch0jin]

Thanks guys. I'm still a little stunned at how much someone paid for a 2nd hand one on ebay, but at least I have the smug self satisfaction associated with driving the bid price up way past retail price before he/she won it....

I like your idea M29, and I'll keep that in mind if I find another reasonably priced 2nd hand unit I can experiment with. Until then I guess I should decide if I desire attenuated Marshall tone, Peavey tone or Epi tone.......

[ShortBuSX]

So what size Weber Mini Mass would I need for a 60 watt Deville?
This seems like a must for me...although I do like the tone turned down to bedroom levels, I just think this would open things up for a me a lil.

[M29]

I believe the next model up is 100 watts. I don't know if I would push a 50 watter there is a chance the 60 watt amp could go bad or the 50 watt attenuator could be damaged. I would play it safe and go for a 100 watt.

IMHO of course

M29