I have a Traynor YCV 80Q and a boss mega dist....i am wondering about my muddy distortion when cranking up the volume...(i play the box thru the clean channel b.t.w.)...attenuators have been mentioned to me alot...but i don't know anything about them...what do they do?...are they a handy pedal for a distortion orientated tube amp player?...thanks for any info - Sito
Your amp starts to "break up" get to it's "saturation" point at louder volumes. An attenuator will allow you to get that "saturation" at lower volumes.
As far as the muddyness, I would think your pedal is the cause of that.
Tube amps need a high volume to get it to really "sing", which is not always neighbour-friendly. To get volume, your amp puts power out, to the speaker - the more power is output, the louder the volume. An attenuator is connected in between amp and speaker and "shares" the power, coming from the amp, with the speaker. The more the attenuator takes for itself, the less is left for the speaker, so the quieter it becomes. The amp can be blasting, full-bore, but the speaker is giving you comfortable living-room volumes.
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