X-LOAD experience

[Taco]

Hi, I recently bought a Marshall JVM-410C which I got modded by (www.captain-koerg.de) . . . The best possible mods for a JVM, btw . . . Hardly enough their website only seems to exist in german, but they reply to emails in english . . . Sorry I'm getting of topic . . . Anyhow great amp/sound, but WAAAYYYY TOOOO LLLLOOOUUUUDDD !
It seems that by using the X-LOAD correctly, I could get a 6DB volume reduction, what does that represent ? would it be worthwhile ? I just checked the doc of my amp which has 1 16Ohm Speaker output, 1 8Ohm speaker output and 1 4ohm speaker output, which means that I'm unable to use the X-LOAD right ? My amp has 2 8ohm speakers wired in series (thus 16ohm).

Thanks for your input,

Taco

 

[mnemonic]

I believe the X-Load is 8 ohms.

If you had an 8 ohm cab you could run the x-load and cab in parallel (plug both into the 4 ohm jacks on the head, two 8 ohm loads in parallel is 4 ohms). In that case, half the power would go to your cab and half to the X-Load. This would be a -3db reduction in volume.

Having only a 16 ohm cab complicates things though. 16 ohm cab and 8 ohm cab in parallel will be approx 5.33 ohm load. This is probably close enough to 4 ohms, though I don’t know anything about modern Marshall transformers and how well they cope with slight mismatches. This will slightly change the sound.

Also since the impedence of each load is different, more power will go to the 8 ohm load than to the 16 ohm cab. I’m not too hot on the math but I think approx 60% of the power in this case? Maybe someone else can correct me. This will be a bit more than -3db reduction in volume.

It may be easier to just put an eq pedal or something in the FX loop to reduce volume, or use the X-Load to fully load down the amp, and run the line-out into a solidstate power amp, and then into your cab. In that way, you can set the Marshalls master volume to whatever you want.