THD Hot Plate Attenuator

As simple as it gets. Manual is short and sweet. Hook it up like it says, don't touch it when it's hot and that's about all you need to remember.

I've got the 16ohm model and I won't go past the -8db setting on this. All I have this for is so I can record or play my amps at a bearable level. That, and using this to for smaller clubs is the real purpose of this thing without a doubt, as far as using it as a straight attenuator. Beyond the -8db level I feel you get too much tone alteration. At the -8db setting it roughly 50% lower volume (if even that) than without the Hotplate engaged. I find the tone is pretty much spot on at -8db to the original after A/Bing them. This is also enough for me to run my heads, which are loud, at respectable levels without driving me nuts. Even though I am able to crank my amps all I want I just can't sit next to a blasting amp for hours while in the studio. Though I still want it loud enough to get the speakers pumping. I give an 8 here since the tone does alter at the lower settings, but imo, up to -8db is excellent.

Never gigged with it, seems sturdy.

Again this thing suits a few certain needs only and it's a little pricey considering that, but worth it if you fall into the category of player who needs it.

Playing for 30+ years. I use it on my Cornford MK50h and early 80's JCM800 into various 4x12 cabs. I play Strats, Teles, Pauls, SG, PRS, Parker Fly, SuperStrats, you name it.

I'd probably replace it if lost/stolen.

Very easy to use. Plug it in and rock on.

Makes your amp sound huge at even at moderate volume levels. Even for home use.

I doubt this will ever brake down. Built like a tank.

I've been in contact with THD by email a few times, and they always answer promptly and give good answers. BUT, they seem to lack common social sense... they will never start their answer with an Hello, or Dear, or... You know, common sense stuff. Not a word more than answering the question. Sometimes with simply a 'yes', 'correct' or 'no'. Very impersonal. Of course, with the hot plate, this would not bother you but I would think twice before purchasing something that migt need a bit more in depth support.

Great product. If you can afford it, buy it.

Real easy. Easy as Lionel Ritchie on Sunday morning.

Hooked up to my 94 50 watt Peavey Transtube Combo, it was like a fart in the face at apartment volumes. Amazing.

No probs yet!

I stole yer hotplate or broke it so you better go get another one cuz this one rocks!

I'm on my second Hotplate now. Used to use a 4 Ohm with a Twin Reverb reissue. Sold those this summer - was happy with them but needed some cash - and replaced a few months later with a Deluxe Reverb reissue and an 8 Ohm Hotplate. So obviously I like the product.

The big surprise was how much better the distortion was on the Deluxe. The Twin, while powerful at 85 Watts, just doesn't drive itself as hard, even at "10", than the Deluxe which is really pushing to get its 22 Watts out. The Deluxe is famous for this of course, and I'd recommend a Hotplate to anyone who owns one for getting that creamy big power tube distortion at apartment/bedroom volume levels.

Yes, at a certain point the speaker itself just stops sounding the same, so you can't make it THAT quiet. But you can get your "on 10" sound without knocking pictures off the wall or the neighbours calling the cops.

Some have mentioned that they think their fan is broken. I think it's just that it doesn't come on unless you put enough power into it. I'd have to turn the Twin up to at least 6 to get it spinning before. The Deluxe just makes the fan wiggle a little. So don't worry that it's broken, if it's not hot to the touch there's no need for the fan to go. I bet it gets pretty cooking on an 185 Watt amp though! :)

The other thing you can do with the Hotplate that's hardly ever mentioned is use it's line-out jack (complete with a widely adjustable level knob!) to get an AFTER-power tube send from your amp. You'll find this sound to be a little clipped and artificial sounding by itself, so I run it into the computer, put a cabinet sim on it, and that brings it right back to sounding like a mic'ed amp. Amazing, a virtual amp that's using a REAL 22 Watts of power tubes, a REAL spring reverb... etc. Sounds way better than most amp sim products. (For the cabinet sim I use and highly recommend Izotope's Trash.)

Built very tough, yet isn't that heavy, so it's unlikely to break if dropped. I'd gig without a backup. You might blow the light and lose your noise reduction - no big deal. Or the fan could die (which it probably doesn't need at all for amps under 100W) but I imagine the rest would keep on working forever.

No need to contact them, works great!

The THD Hotplate is an easy-to-use, passive device which requires only correct connection (using speaker cable, not guitar lead) to work. There are no batteries and very little, hopefully, to go wrong. Treat it right and it is well-built enough to return the favour. In use, simply first set the amp how you would wish and then try each setting on the Hotplate until you find the volume which suits the venue or the occasion. At the higher levels of attenuation a quick EQ tweak may just be necessary, but this is a matter of taste and nothing a guitarist regularly playing out shouldn't already be prepared for. As with most worthwhile pursuits the method shouldn't get in the way, but the best outcomes may take a while to achieve. They did for me, but getting there is half the fun!

Anyone serious enough about playing to be spending ??250GBP on an attenuator will have read enough literature to know something of their nature, but here's what I've found when using the 8Ohm THD Hotplate into my Mesa Boogie F50 - it certainly works, but just understand what it is you're trying to achieve with it and whether this is possible. It'd be a waste of money otherwise, through no fault of THD.

The Hotplate does a good job of taking the silly-unusable volume of the F50 right down to levels which are much more usable. Indeed, not only does it do this, but it also allows a great deal more control over the output volume. OK so that's volume taken care of, but then of course there's the highly subjective nature of tone. Reading through these pages you will find a great deal of discussion about whether the Hotplate can take your cranked Marshall 100W stack down to home levels with no loss of tone or feel. Frankly, if this is what you are expecting of a Hotplate then unfortauntely you are asking for something unreasonable. Here in the U.K. volume is an increasing problem for live music and so the Hotplate is a near-essential tool for the valve amp user, even for those already using fairly low-powered valve amps, say 40W ??? which is still really very loud. If there's a compromise in tone, well, that' s the world we live in and we have to work around it with combinations of EQ, pickups and guitars. Not the end of the world and curable even if you do find it a problem. Your punters want to hear a great mix and have a good time, not leave with Tinnitus. Surely you only need enough volume to get over the drummer, you can mic up for the rest.

I have found that the Hotplate really does sound incredibly transparent on all settings, bar only the lowest volume settings of -16dB. This stands to reason, and may well be as much the "feel" as the sound itself. Sometimes they're hard to separate. Nonetheless, the sound is still acceptable right down to these levels; but it becomes fizzy and lacks dynamics. The very low settings are a handy tool for song-writing or drummer-less rehearsals - but they are not the be-all and end-all of tone; perhaps a good modeller might be better. Nevertheless, very low volume is only part of the Hotplate's capability and it's not intended to be perfect, and physically can never be. Crank up the volume pot on the -16dB settings and the fizzyness of the lower settings quickly retreats and you're rewarded with your amp???s true tone at reduced volume. It's your tone, but at less volume and marginally less feel - which is what you would expect if you're in the market for an attenuator. If you can get up into the -12dB or -8dB settings, tone becomes even more like the un-attenuated tone. -8dB or -4dB are really getting too loud for my needs and probably if such little attenution is what you need then maybe the amp's controls themselves would render the Hotplate redundant anyway. For my needs, at -12dB or -8dB and using the deep or bright switches, to my ears the Hotplate removes some of the harsh treble I've found the F50 to exhibit in some venues.

I did find that my amp needed re-EQ'ing to suit the Hotplate, but again this is no real problem and in fact I now prefer the sound from my Clapton Strat and SG Standard. I can finally get that clean channel break up which simply can't be found at usable levels on the F50 without the Hotplate. Overall, despite my relatively short time of owning a Hotplate I cannot foresee a time when I won't find it useful, and I haven't even used the Lineout or auxillary output sockets yet. I'm glad I bought it.

My only dislike is really the price. It hurts to pay such an exorbitant sum only to reduce volume - but if you've got an amp you truly love, and found it to put out simply too much volume for your needs, well, the THD Hotplate is both cheaper and less time spent than shopping for a smaller (high quality) amp,

The Hotplate is an entirely passive device which is well-built, to a solid physical design using outwardly very sturdy materials. It's a bit of a pain to need a Hotplate in the first place, but look after it, don't drop it or spill your beer on it and it should be fine. Abuse it, and it will eventually abuse you - but who in the real world abuses quality, expensive gear? It lives safely on top of the amp anyway, rather than being kicked about like a stompbox.

Never had to try them, but other quality US manufacturers seem to stand by their products even thousands of miles away here in the UK; so I have confidence THD's reputation extends "over the pond."

The THD Hotplate is a quality piece of kit with the kind of esoteric performance you should expect of one. However, its market is somewhat limited to the high-end users who have outlaid money for good gear they already love using in the right environs, and seek only that last 5% towards their accepted perfection. In this capacity, and at the price associated with it, the THD Hotplate absolutely excels. Too far outside these conditions, in my consideration you are looking at the wrong product for your needs.

8 ohm version in day-glo purple. Simple setup, just remember that the front volume knob only functions when the attenuator click-knob is at -16db.

Coming late to the discussion, I'd like to add how my experiences with the THD Hot Plate differ from the previous comments. I was moved to buy this for my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 40W amp by the thoughtful reviews here.

I like gritty amplified blues sounds (Burnside, Howlin' Wolf), rock classics (Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, SRV), and modern descendants.

While Dan's analysis above was solid overall (you should read it), I had a different experience from his. I found that I really could get excellent overdriven tube sound at "apartment levels". Dan is quite correct that there's no way you can faithfully reproduce high-volume overdriven tone at low volumes. What the Hot Plate gives me sounds like a *recording* of an awesome high-volume overdriven amp sound as played back through my CD player. Sure it doesn't sound as good as being at the concert, but my overdriven tube tone is close to what I hear through my home stereo.

There is some overall tone cost to attenuation (the separate high and low 'boost' switches help a little with that). Obviously, none of the intentional microphonic effects of loud noise on glass tubes will be present, but that's probably an over-subtle detail.

This may sound naive, but it took me some time to get my tone back after installation. Once I realized that my overdrive, treble boost, and compressor interacted differently with an overdriven amp than a quiet one (I typically *do* only play at apartment levels), I was able to dial it all back in, or pretty close. The compressor sustain setting took me a second google to remember that overdriven tubes add a natural squish effect.

After my experience, I'll only buy really small (like 15W) high-quality amps and play them at high gain and volume (studio Jimmy Page), or I'll always have an attenuator in place. NB: I've only heard it on the Fender amp.

Appears to be an anodized aluminum case with steel end pieces. So yeah, seems pretty okay.

Well, that's why I'm writing this review. Before returning my second unit because the light bulbs (used for noise reduction) had also burned out the first day (stupid thing!), I thought I'd call THD. They turned out to be about a mile away from my office, so I visited them. Ed had asked me over the phone if I might have hooked it up backwards. The insolence! How could you mix up the two jacks! [Foreshadowing]

Let's just say that wiring it backwards won't break it, but the lights only glow weakly if you pump a ton of juice through it ("Hey!", said Ed, "looks like they *will* light up if you strum hard enough.")

Anyway, neither Ed nor his coworkers laughed at me, and I do like the proudct, so if you're thinking about buying it here's one positive review. Also, when debugging anything always remember to recheck even the "obvious givens". :)

I play two kinds of music: rockin' blues and bluesy rock. I'm a novice guitarist, but I'm also an engineer gear-head, so once I learned of the QUEST FOR PERFECT TONE, I immediately signed up.

I play an Epiphone Riviera (full humbuckers) through a variety of super-awesome custom built better-than-yours effects pedals that I switch around all the time into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 40W amp with a 12" Celestion Gold Alnico speaker.

Fortunatly, this unit is very user friendly. There are only two speaker cords to hook up to the amp.

I play thru a Mesa Boogie Mark IV. Any one who is familiar with this amp knows it is LOOOOOUUUUUUDDDDDDDD, and doesn't sound good cranked back. I play mostly at church so a good low to medium volume is a must, but I was not able to bring the beast to life until now. I run a lot of ROCKMAN effects with a MXR Custom Shop Stereo Smart Gate, so my rig is fairly quiet. I play a PRS Custom 22, a Am. Standard Strat with Seymours and a Am. Std. Tele. The first time I connected the 8 ohm Hot Plate to my set-up, I could not believe the difference. The clean suffered a little at first, but my crunch and lead and lead with E.Q. was awesome! It just will not quit sustaining. I backed down the gain on the clean channel, worked with the E.Q. a little and bumped up the master and I was back to awesome!

I will never not use this on whatever amp I play thru. I also have a Mesa Boogie DC-3 and a Marshall 60 watt combo. I only use tube amps so it will be a permanant companion to my sound. I can't imagine it ever going down. It is built like a tank. This unit is made for gigs. If it were to go down, it's not like you can't just go back to the regular and suffer the old sound till it's fixed.

I did a lot of reading and comparing before ordering my Hot Plate. I even e-mailed Tech Support to get some pointers and how best to hook up to a board. They were VERRY helpful and very promt to reply. That impressed me! Have not needed any repairs or upgrades yet. I can't imagine ever needing this thing upgraded.

I play alot of clean rhythm, sort of country with jazz and blues style, and use a Rockman compressor, E.Q., Chorus, Echo and Smart Gate. I use a crunchy sound for adding edge and bite, then a good dose of distortion when needed for leads or just heavy riffs and rock type songs. I played with pro bands for years playing small to large venues and I only wish I had this thing back then! I have been playing since 1977 and have seen just about everything.If this got lost or stolen I would have a fit, then get another RIGHT AWAY!!!! The bright and deep switches are of little use to me. I guess I have enough E.Q. and a good enough speaker to not need it, but it's nice to know it's there if I ever do need them. The noise gate is hard to notice working, but like I said, I have a real good one in my rack. I noticed that unless you are playing pretty loud, it doesn't even blink. I am a fanatic about noise so I wish it was more active. I set it to 16 db and cranked the right knob till you could hardly hear it and it still sounded good. I have yet to hear what some people call the fizzies or anything flabby. I can't remember being so happy with a musicial purchase in a long time!!!! I usually don't consider anything perfect cause as soon as you do, it breaks. I am going on record now and announcing in my opinion this unit to date is a 10!

Not much to say. Plug it in and use it.

First, go down and read the review by Dan. Then, believe it.

I thought it might be useful to someone to read a review from someone who isn't a metal head. I have the impression that attenuators are mostly used by the high-gain crowd to save their ears. Well, there are other uses. I use a very-low-output Hauessel humbucker through a Fender DeVille with 5751s in the preamp and cold-biased TADs in the output stage. Not exactly a setup destined for massive amounts of distortion. The music is jazz, more or less. I bought the hot plate about 6 months ago, played with it a few times, then put it away in my box for a while. A few months ago it came out again and has become a permanent fixture in the practice room.

What do I do with it? I turn my amp up to about 4 and attenuate it just a notch or two. This gets the amp working a bit -- just a bit -- and keeps the volume in the rehearsal room low enough so that we can still hear ourselves think. Then the line out goes into the pa, and is sent out the monitor which is attached to a minidisk. Sound on the disk is fine. Ears are fine. Tone is fine. I'm happy. My singer can hear herself again. The recordings are useful. I suppose if I were ever visited by the success genie and we played a large club I would use it to send the guitar through the PA. I'll probably never know.

Well, it's built like a tank. It doesn't get abused in the practice room, but it excretes an aroma of robustness. It's certainly better built than some of my other gear (the Deville, for example). I can't imagine much could go wrong with it as long as I keep it closed and don't assault it with a soldering iron.

dunno, but Mr. DeGenaro personally answered a stupid question I had before I bought it. That gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

Well, it's useful. I sure do like that line out. I'm getting great tone on disc, and don't have to mess with microphones. If it disappeared for some reason, I would have to buy another or something similar. It's just too convenient a tool to live without.

Why did I choose this one? I'm not in an area where I can compare things. I read up on attenuators, looked at what I could order, and picked this one. It had the features I wanted and good reviews. You pick one and hope you get it right the first time.

Playing for >30 years. Other gear: my beloved '76 tele. Korean archtop with Hauessel pickups. Fender DeVille.

Super easy. Make sure the Hotplate rating is the same as your speaker/amp. Mine's all 16ohm. And use SPEAKER cable not instrument cable to connect between your amp and speakers.

Excellent, even at highest attenuation level. Marshall 1987x 50 watt plexi reissue, Marshall 1960ac cabinet with 4-25watt Celestions, 16ohm. Sounds great at all volumes. Less attenuation sounds the best, but I can play at home all night and no one complains. When I play out, use the lower settings, adjust the tone, and JAM...!! Not sure why the reviewer below gets hisses and pops. Dead quiet on mine at all amp settings and guitar settings. Fender Tele and Strat.

Feels solid. Looks well built. Needs no power to operate. Just plug in and play

Not sure. Never called

I play old rock, AC/DC, Stones, Blues rock, Nirvanna. No metal. My ears and neighbors would all be gone if I didnt use the Hotplate. I thought I'd hate it, but I love it.

Ive been using a HP for a very long time. Almost as long as thd have made them. Im a pro guitar player and I play 150+ dates a year. I dont write that many reviews but I like dispelling some hype with my experience.

As far as easy to use I dont know how to rate this. If you know what your doing at all this is striat forward. If you dont you could really mess something up like your guitar amp! But theirs not much to a HP and the directions are clear.

One thing that I keep hearing thats just incensing me is this idea of "play your 100W, 50w, 30w, etc.. amplifier at bedroom levels" crap. I just dont know how anyone can think they could get a reasonable sound from a loud amp at levels that wont sound loud through walls of houses or apartments. Here's how Ive used this box and I find it invaluable in these circumstances:

1 - As a load box for the EVH type setup. Im not a big EVH fan but Ive taken some ques from him and others that used to run their marshall heads' speaker outs to a load box effectively turning the head into a preamp in the system (running it through FX and then to a power amp). Not only is that great control over studio and stage volume but you can run time based effects with non master and non FX loop amps. For this the HP works wonders. I like to use the 16ohm HP and still turn the marshalls speaker out to 4ohms. It gets it even lower and darker that way and I think it sounds better. I dont care if the 2 EQ switches dont have a big effect if you run it this way because I dont use them. I dont think they sound good at all. 95% of the time thats how Ill run my early marshalls or Voxs. One tip Ive learned from experience. Dont use tube power amps with this kind of setup. It sounds much better with non-tube, pro-sound PA power amps. Theyre designed to color the tone of the sound as little as possable and thats kind of what your going after. I have my sound from my marshall now I just want to faithfully amplify it.

2 - To tame the loudness of amps as an attenuator. As far as using the HP in a way that wont greatly effect your tone you can only get away with a taming of the volume. Thats all. Im not gonna BS about bedroom levels like other people. Ive found this unit is only good for taking the edge off of a really loud amp. Anything past the first 2 settings and your into wierd noise territory. Ive never found an attenuator that wasnt like that. -12dbs or more and on come the fizzles and the flabbies. Especially when your talking -16dbs and below. I dont see how anyone can think that they could ever get the natural sound of the amp this way. Theirs too many variables besides the amps speaker output level that make an amp sound certain ways when loud. If you must do this Id say at least try to make a seperate speaker cab for running it low. With lower and very inefficiant speakers. I am a devotee of the HP but I use it in a realistic way. I use it to keep my marshalls out of Tinnitus levels and down to normal loud stage levels and to make my Vox more reasonable at home.

If your willing to put up with a certain amount of wierd glassy compression and some fizzing and flubbing to play your amp at home you could look past this to an extent. Even at -12dbs a dime'd 100w amp is still loud enough for stage volume. Its mostly a feel thing too. I dont think its the HP making your sound fizzy. I think thats just how your amp sounds when you attenaute all the energy off and are barely moving a speaker. Thats why I say I just think its crazy to expect your amp to sound like it would normally. It is a cranked sound (because it is comming from your amp and the amp is cranked), but not the one most people are after. Its more a feel thing then anything. Its hard to describe the sound at extreme attenuation levels. If you wanted to get close to that one really glassy, shrill guitar sound in Layla it sounds kind of like that. But I dont think its a tone change as much as a feel change. It just feels extremely weird at those kinds of attenuation levels. Kind of like a weird, extreme compressor effect. Strange.

Ive always felt if you want good home tone then get a small low wattage amp. If you want bedroom level tones your gonna have to face the fact that it's not going to be that great. For kinda loud home tones I run the HP with my Vox. For even lower ones I use an early 70's Tweed Modded Champ (really sweet.) And for hotel room levels I either breakdown and use my P

After years its always worked for me. Its really beaten up now. Road rash all over.

The few times Ive emailed THD they responded within a week. Never called.

If you intend to use it to tame loud amps or in a Load box way Id say its a great value.

If you are looking for cranked amps at bedroom levels Id say you need to sit and think about how realistic that idea is.

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.