THD Hot Plate Attenuator

Hot Plate was very simple to set up. Run a speaker cable from the back of your amp into the hot plate, and then run a cable from the hot plate to your speaker(s). It does come with a manual but it's not like you really need one to begin with.

My rig is as follows. I run a Mesa Triple Rectifier into a Mesa 4x12 cab and a Peavey 4x12 cab. My Mesa cab is wired at 8 ohms, the 5150 cab at 16. The hot plate works with both, there is no signal degradation. I have most of my effects run through the loop with a few going from my guitar. I'm interested to see if I can produce the Rhoads / Lynch tone...even if I don't...it sounds terrific already.

THD has built in redundancy in that there are no batteries. The signal that you produce activates the Hot Plate's fan...so in essence, it works as long as your amplifier is working to play. I would definitely use it at a gig without backup.

I ordered this through a THD dealer and the product was initially backordered. It came in at a near exact time THD quoted. Amazing...all I have to say.

I enjoy the good rock and roll. I like the high volume distortion of tube amplifiers..and this thing is allowing me to do that in a small setting. You dont' have to sacrifice the tone you want so people drinking a beer dont get a headache. It has all the features I would want and it's incredibly easy to use. I can't say enough about it and I have yet to find anything that I don't like about it. I suggest buying one, if you like having good tone and you don't mind putting down the couple of beans that it costs...get one. Well worth the investment.

The Hot Plate attenuator is very easy to use. The impedence settings of your amp and cabinet determine which Hot Plate model you need to use. You need to use speaker cable to connect the amp to the Hot Plate and the Hot Plate to a cabinet. The instructions are very well written, but you must pay attention to what you are doing. You must make sure you plug the correct cables into to correct jacks or you can damage your amp. The Hot Plate has a line-out jack that you can use to send dry signal to effects and/or to a slave power amp for a second cabinet via an instrument cable. I use this feature and found a very high signal coming from the line-out jack even with the level knob turned all the way down. The instructions mention that this can happen and tell you to remove the ground wire from one plug of the instrument cable the connects the jack to the effects. I tried this but it did not work. I contacted THD and the CEO Andy Marshall helped me resolve this problem. Andy said it was a ground loop problem and that we needed to lift the ground from one of the amps. I experimented with a ground-lift plug and found that I had to lift the ground from the originating amp.

I chose the THD Hot Plate because of the sound quality. It is very transparant and does not color or change the tone at all. I have tried the Marshall Power Brake and Scholtz Powersoak and both seem to color the tone. All attenuators seem to sound best when still sending enough signal to push the speakers. The Hot Plate sounds best at -8db and very good at -12db, but at -16db it loses a little something. However the neighbors will appreciate the -16db setting as will your ears. It does have a separate low and high boost circuit that you can use at lower volumes to recover some of the lost tone. It also has a noise reduction circuit that you can use at all settings.

The Hot Plate is built like a tank and looks like it will work forever. The only thing that will need periodic maintenence is the zenon bulb that it uses for noise reduction circuit. If the bulb burns out you can still use the unit, but will not be able to use the built in noise reduction. I think I can depend on it and would feel comfortable using it without a backup.

THD is one of the two companies I have dealt with that has provided exemplary customer support. When I had a problem Andy Marshall - the CEO of THD - worked directly with me to resolve the ground loop problem. Andy was extremely knowledgeable, courteous, and promptly returned all phone calls and email.

I bought the Hot Plate so I could use my 100watt Marshall at 10 and get it's optimal tone without going deaf. The best thing about the Hot Plate is that it doesn't color the tone of the amp. The only thing that would make the Hot Plate a better value would be if it had selectable impedence settings. Currently you must buy the correct model to match the impedence of your amp and cab. The Marshall Power Brake has a selectable impedence, but colors the tone. If there is a trade off between versatility and sound, THD did the right thing and should keep it as is. If it were lost or stolen I would definately get another one.