Carl's Custom Guitars 8 ohm 50 Watt Speaker Soak guitar amp power tube mass/brake attenuator

I recently picked up one of these for my 1986 Marshall JCM800 2204 Single-channel 50 watt head. Anyone who's played one of these old Marshall knows they are stupid loud. As in I've played outdoor venues with more than 10,000 people and a "5" was a bit too loud (*side note - I am fully aware this attenuator is only rated for up to 50watts and Marshall 50 watters notoriously put out closer to 70-80 watts...I bought this knowing I'd be using it with my master volume under 5).Anyways, I've tried the Marshall Power Brake, the Dr. Z Brake Lite, and a THD Hotplate. While every attenuator will color your tone at least a small amount, the Carl's Custom Guitars Speaker Soak is in the exact same league as all of these other ones for about a 1/10th of the price. Setting my amp at about 4.5 on the master volume and using the Speaker Soak to get the volume back down to bedroom levels produces some seriously drool worthy tones. Doing the same thing but dialing the volume to what's close to the master volumes level at 2 gives me enough power to cut through my bands mix and my band mates all agree my tone is more vibrant and alive using the Speaker Soak to dial back from a high volume versus just using a lower Master Volume setting.Does it color my sound, yes...but it is very minimal. If anything it makes my JCM800 a little bit darker/muddier, which might sound like a bad thing, but anyone familiar with JCM800 knows it's a notoriously bright and "chimey" amp, meaning this coloration actually improves the tone - especially if I'm using one of my Fenders through it over my Gibsons or PRS guitars. The added bonus is with the Master Volume cranked, I have an amp that I can literally control the sound with nothing more than my strum attack. If I play light, I get almost perfectly clean tones (I can get almost Fender Twin clean rolling the guitar volume back to about 7.5 and playing light). If I play with a bit of power, I get a nice AC/DC classic hard rock Marshall snarl. If I pick hard I get a crunch similar to the Mesa Boogie Mk IIc+. If I pick hard with a bit of a clean signal boost (I use a 6 band Joyo EQ with all bands getting +6db) I am in the almost Soldano searing lead zone. Seriously, this $40 box makes my already desirably Marshall one of the most versatile amps I've ever played (and I've played modern monsters like the Mesa Road King and the Bogner Uberschall).For $40 bucks and a money back guarantee, you can't go wrong. This thing is a must for anyone with a tube amp rated at higher than 15 watts that needs that full on tube sound at manageable levels. You'll spend more on a crappy budget line pedal, save your cash and get one of these babies.

Don't waste your money on this, it's simply a wiper style potentiometer and a capacitor and two jacks. Tucked in a box. Build one for about 15$ It works half decent but took an act of Congress to get it to me and I live Stupid Close to where it ships from. Carl is your typical Mass*#le to deal with too! Something about that breed of People who think they are all that and can afford to be rude and entitled to get away with it. Horrible customer service and Nasty Attitude to go with it. This guy is a jerk

I wasn't sure about this attenuator/speaker soak due to it's price and all the garbled input about attenuators online from high price to the low cost Carl's. I have a Fender 65' DR reissue and really want the tubes to crank. Fortunately the amp has the 1/4 inch speaker jack that plugs right into the soak and a patch cable from the speaker output (8 Ohms-important don't screw this up, ohms should match) on the amp to the soak. 2012 American Standard Strat, Wampler Gearbox, Electric Mistress is all I'm running right now, amp volume at 8 and soak barely turned up but very responsive to level. Sounds Fantastic. Love it! Very Surprised and very happy!

Speaker soakers and attenuators are tricky pieces of gear upfront. If your resistances aren't adjusted properly, or crank your power beyond what the attenuator is rated for, you could have problems. The purpose of an attenuator isn't to run your amp at 100% so you're dumping all of it's power into the attenuator. Rather, the goal (as always) is to get an awesome sound. Unless you're recording, getting hot tube overdrive really isn't necessary. Every amp has a "sweet spot" in terms of its volume and gain settings, for my Marshall JCM2000 DSL50, I like running my volume between 5~7, and adjusting my channel's gain accordingly. It sounds great, but it's just too loud for the neighbors... so enter the Speaker Soak.If the only reason you're looking to buy an attenuator is because you need to keep the volume low while you're rocking out in the garage or bedroom... then I would seriously consider buying a practice amp instead. Carl's Speaker Soak is really meant for those 15-30 watt lunchbox tube amps that need to get cranked to 11 before they sound amazing. Other options you might consider would be the Behringer Vintage Tube Monster if you want high-octane tube tone at low volumes. The Behringer VT999 can give you all the tube tone you want, and after running it into a clean solid state channel, will allow you to find just the volume setting you need.I bought my Speaker Soak because I wanted to run my JCM2000 directly into my ADA GCS-3 Speaker Simulator (for direct input recording), but I needed an attenuator in my signal chain to soak up some volume before it goes to my speaker (so I won't disturb my roommates).If you are looking to buy an attenuator because you're running with a 100-watt Marshall full-stack... I'd look elsewhere.Another (1-star) reviewer had some problems with his attenuator smoking. Well, he may have spoken too soon. My attenuator also smoked, but this was in fact component glue inside that was burning - not the attenuator itself. This was also after I had set my amp's volume to max and the Speaker Soak to Min (0)... which isn't how I'd use the Speaker Soak in reality.If you want an attenuator to shave 25-75% of your volume, but maintain 95-100% of your tone, then this product is for you.

All the other reviews must be Carl's friends because I plugged it into my Deluxe Reverb and it sounds HORRIBLE. It works like it says, but the degradation in sound quality is not worth the use of it. I've owned a Hot Plate and Brakelite before and they are 1000% better, albeit a lot more expensive. If you want something to mess around with in your basement, this is fine, but I'd never record or play out with it. If you really want to crank up your quality tube amp then get a quality attenuator from Hot Plate, Dr. Z or Bad Cat. The Weber is also pretty good, but not as good as the higher priced ones.