Any Line6 DT25 owners here?

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Tarekith
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Any Line6 DT25 owners here?

Post by Tarekith » Tue May 29, 2012 11:36 pm

I was just wondering how loud the amp has to get in order to take advantage of the tube gain from the power stage. I know I'm a freak, but I really don't enjoy playing my guitar super loud, but the DT25 being only 25w has me intrigued. Especially paired with my HD500. I know that it has a low volume mode, but that removes the actual tube power section for modelling, which kind of defeats the point of getting a tube amp Might as well just run the HD500 direct like I am now.

Can you get good tone at a reasonable level, or does it need to get pretty loud to hit it's sweet spot? In other words, if my wife was home watching TV downstairs, would I get yelled at for making my guitar sound good? :)

Peevy
Posts: 127
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2010 3:52 pm

Re: Any Line6 DT25 owners here?

Post by Peevy » Wed May 30, 2012 10:12 am

I'm not sure how loud you have to go to get the tubes cooking with the DT25 (good choice for an all-rounder amp by the way) as I haven't got one myself. But I did recently get an EVH 5150 III 50watt head & I was a bit concerned with getting the right tone at lower volumes, so I bought a Koch Dummyload attenuator.

Koch DummyLoad Home

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This is one of the cheapest ones available at the minute (in Europe) & there's a slightly more expensive version that comes with a balanced XLR output. Before using this attenuator, I had to be very careful in setting the volume of my amp & could barely get the volume to 1. But with the dummyload set at medium 3% output, I can get the volume to about 3 (about 10 oclock) which is definitely enough to get the power tubes working. Another good thing about an attenuator like the Dummyload is that you can use it silently without a cab attached, feed the output directly to your audio interface & use cab only impulses (most impulses have the poweramp & cab sound) in your DAW.

I've only used Solid State/modelling amps & Amplitube until now, after finally owning a tube amp & recording it with a cheap mic, I can finally see what all the fuss is about. I A/b'd the EVH against Amplitube & there's just no camparison. The EVH amp recorded with a cheap vocal mic at a lower than ideal volume, sounds a lot better than Amplitube. No disrespect to IK or Amplitube, its a great & very convenient plugin. Its thanks to Amplitube & some of the newer amp models IK's come out with recently I got into proper tube amps, thinking "if these amp models sound so good in Amplitube, how good would the real thing sound?" The EVH has answered that question......

Sorry for waffling on, but yeah a decent attenuator would do the trick. It can affect your tone at higher levels of attenuation, but low to mid levels of attenuation should be fine. Oh & always make sure the attenuator can take the wattage load of your amp. The Koch Dummyload is rated at 60watt which is just about enough for my EVH & should be more than enough for a DT25.
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fragmentated
Posts: 184
Joined: Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:52 pm

Re: Any Line6 DT25 owners here?

Post by fragmentated » Wed May 30, 2012 4:35 pm

Can't speak for the DT25 but I do have a Blackstar HT-5 Combo which is 5 watts. It is definitely too loud to crank all the way up in my house in my small studio room. Someone downstairs would be complaining if they were trying to watch tv.

Would be really interested to hear about the DT25 though because I've eyeballed that also. As someone who only jams on the guitar at home and does not play out I'm thinking it's overkill in terms of volume at my house. It does look really neat though when paired with the floor Pod HD models.

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