Brown box voltage Attenuation

Bluze81

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I play live with a 2009 Paisley CAD 112 Blue Sierra amp and use a Brown Box Votage attenuater, Just curious if any you players use the Brown box live? And what voltage do you run on it? I see on some stages AC That's as high as 130 AC from plugs,I generally set mine at 114 ac to the amp I find the tone good and the feel is better also I would think the tubes run cooler. I use Old Stock tubes. Any feedback appreciated, Thank you
 
I play live with a 2009 Paisley CAD 112 Blue Sierra amp and use a Brown Box Votage attenuater, Just curious if any you players use the Brown box live? And what voltage do you run on it? I see on some stages AC That's as high as 130 AC from plugs,I generally set mine at 114 ac to the amp I find the tone good and the feel is better also I would think the tubes run cooler. I use Old Stock tubes. Any feedback appreciated, Thank you
I don't know if this information is at all helpful (I run NOS tubes in all my amps, too); here's my understanding:

One of my amps is a Mesa Lone Star. In addition there's a CAD HXDA, a DG30 and a Mesa Fillmore.

The Lone Star has a built-in voltage attenuator that lets the player select either 120 or 93 Volt ('tweed') operation. As expected, the amp sounds and feels different at 90 Volts, especially at 50 Watts with the tube rectifier switched in.

In the manual, Mesa states tube life improves in the Tweed mode, and I remember Randall Smith making that statement around the time the model was introduced:

"Another bonus is that if you were to use the TWEED power setting often, tube life would increase substantially."

Of course, whether this applies to other amps I simply don't know. I've thought about getting a Brown Box or rackmount Furman voltage regulator to keep things more consistent, since my AC power tends to fluctuate between 119 and 124 volts.

If I ran a Brown Box live, I'd set it pretty much where you do, maybe as high as 117 or as low as 110.
 
I swear by them! I sold them in my store and communicated w Pat, the designer, quite a bit when they first came out. For awhile I had the rackmount unit w two Edison break out boxes and ran whole backlines with it. I’ll usually reduce down to 108-110V to get the sag/feel right and all my amps are very happy. OP is correct, club stages are running hot these days. I can confirm that it extends tube life as well. Huge fan of these.
 
I used one when I played full-time because power was all over the place and my Vox was much happier at a lower voltage. It also keeps my old supro thunderbolt in a happier place too.

I decided recently I needed to use it again and it wouldn't power on which ended up being a bad thermistor that I was able to replace and am back to happier amps.
 
I have a Variac, but just use it for my older amps to give them the voltage they were designed to use. This mostly applies to a 64 Fender and a 76 Boogie, but keeping them all under 120 is good for the internals. Ramping up the voltage (roughly) equates to jacking up bias and all voltages going through the tubes is going to be higher. Higher = hotter = faster wear.

I wanted to get a Brown Box, but never did because the Variac was here if I needed it. I’d still like to have a BB, though!
 
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