Hi guys,

I recentrly bought a fender hot rod deluxe george benson signature edition, thing is, as most of you will know: these amps dont come with an output for headphones. Since I play at home most of the time, I really need this so I can play at all hours of the day (night)

I was looking at a couple of attenuators, especially weber has some with headphone outputs. And I was looking at a SPL Cabulator and to be honest, I don't really understand the difference. Doing research on these things generally gets me more confused than I was before, so I was hoping for a little advice here.

Questions I have are:
Would the sound in my headphones be as good as comes out of the speaker?
Is there an option on any attenuator/cabulator to send the signal to my MIDI-interface? and with the same sound quality?
What is the difference between a cabulator and an attenuator?

Many thanks!
Lester

This post has been edited by Lester: Aug 24 2013, 06:19 PM

I was always wondering about these devices so it will be interesting to hear feedback from people who used them.

>Would the sound in my headphones be as good as comes out of the speaker?

I'm pretty sure it won't as speaker reacts different to signals sent from the amp.
For home use, I think attenuator is great for allowing amp to run hotter on lower volume.

I think the easiest combo is to play on normal (house) volume during the day and then switch to some digital unit with nice modeling for night practice.

Thanks for your feedback Bogdan,

I do have a midi interface which I use with Guitarrig, but the amp just sounds so much better
Attenuator does sound like the best option right now, and the prices are allright.
I do know that a cabulator has a powersoak and speakersim, it just doesn't make sense to me what for...

It will sound a little (I mean a very little) 'different' than if you're going through the speaker and the cabinet unimpeded. The power structure is changed when you use attenuator and if you add headphones to the mix you're now taking the spkr and cab out the chain.
Generally you'll have a little less presence and punch. But it will still essentially sound like your amp.

Most guys out here use one of these ... http://www.thdelectronics.com/product_page_hotplate.html
*They make different models for different wattage amps.

Thanx for the input, klasaine!
certainly an interesting option..

I think that the best solution for headphone practice is using amp emulators. There are many devices like Pod, Axe, Kemper, Pandora, Nux, which has very different prices. There are also software emulators like Guitar Rig, Amplitube, Peavey and many others.

I don't have information about attenuators and cabulators, but I'm curious about it.

Hi Gabriel,

I currently have a Tascam midi-interface with guitar rig. I just spoke to someone who's looking to sell his cabulator and he tells me it has the posibility to turn the sound of the amp into a line signal for a mixer or midi-interface.
To me that's quite interesting, just curious about the sound quality though. Because if it drops significantly I might as well stick to my midi-interface
I'm hoping that I can test it first before buying it