CorporateDisguise wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 5:37 am
Also, I didn't mean to offend you, and if I have, I appologize. The subtlies of language are often lost when communicating through text, and I did not mean to be condescending in anyway.
Edited for grammatical mistakes because typing on a phone is hard.
On the subtleties of text, my '
what's an attenuator going to do' question was, rather than a statement of 'I don't know anything about this at all, please talk to me about the fundamentals of valve amps', a (marginally) more polite way of saying 'I don't think this addresses or provides a solution
to the OP's specific problem'.
I can only surmise that we've had fairly different experiences when using a DR, as I've never played through one out of headroom or feeling significant compression at '3' on the dial (I tend towards low output single coils,
always, so there's one potential variable), even when digging in. They're a loud, stiff amp. I mean, not Twin Reverb levels of stiff, but certainly a different beast to the wonderful squashed, chewy mess of a Princeton Reverb turned up past 6-7 (which sadly is also way too loud for household situations
)
The (non-switchable in the case of the DR) 47pF 'bright' cap across the volume pot (assuming use of the 'Vibrato' input) paired with the feeling of the amp and speaker 'coming to life' from it's fairly bland/anemic sounding start as the volume rolls up well over conversational levels is an excellent demonstration of Fletchen Munson, as Mike mentioned early on in the thread.
I still don't really see an attenuator being the perfect 'fix' for the OP, although I can see it counteracting the bright cap somewhat by allowing the volume pot to be turned up higher without annoying his wife. And
Gavanti indicated this exact setup worked for him upthread, so I it's certainly worth a try, and they are surprisingly cheap devices these days. He could also try plugging into the 'Normal' channel (which omits the bright cap, and tends to provide a fuller sound) and see if the results are more pleasing at lower volumes, noting the Weber 12F150 is an efficient, 'big' sounding speaker so will get to the point of a 'too loud' perceived volume faster than a less efficient driver.
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
Also, I fully admit bias:
I don't like attenuators. The only time I've used one and thought the result sounded 'as good' was with a 100W Marshall JMP that belonged to a friend of mine, which was just an unbearably loud, pants shaking (even with attenuation), absurd, stupid, glorious sounding amp. Heated arguments followed when said friend brought it to use at a gig in a ~200 capacity venue,
sans-attenuator, where I was the 'lucky' guy running the mixing desk...