cjar66

Hi Guys
has anyone had a play with the zvex box of rock yet?

The you tube vid from zvex sound pretty good. I have a jtm 45 with a 1960tv cabinet and was thinking of getting a thd hotplate for keeping the neighbours and wife happy, but after seeing the vid was wondering if the zvex would work as both a great didtortion pedal at volume and also produce a great sound at lower levels.
Being that the pedal is around $200 cheaper than a hot plate in oz has anyone got any advice?

thanks guys and gals

CJAR [Rob]

cjar66

didtortion pedal???
sorry guys I obviously meant distortion- gotta use that spell check more often
[cjar] Rob

plexipaul

Or did you mean "distortron" ?

PaoloJM

The Zvex does sound pretty good, I checked out the ProGuitarShop vid on utube but haven't used it personally.
They are two very different items though. The Zvex appears as though it is a solid state (@ 9V supply that's my guess) designed to emulate a sound, JTM45, in this case and doesn't do a bad job of it either. It sits between your guitar and amp and does almost all the tone work when engaged.
The Hotplate goes between the amp and speaker and let's your amp do most of the tone work. It's great at what it does but in my opinion the -16dB settings start sucking tone and that's what you'll need for bedroom playing. Also it obviously does not have the boost option that's on the pedal.
I'd say the Zvex may be slightly better for bedroom play whereas the Hotplate would definitely be better for gigging on the -12/-8/-4dB setting depending on the size of the gig. This is because the Hotplate let's the amp do what it does best!! In fact, if you had the cash, both would be great for a gig as the boost part on this pedal seems really tasty!!

stryker59

i have the hot plate and imo if there is any tone loss at the 16 ohm level it is minimal...no more than inserting a pedal in front of the amp, i use it on the 12 and 8 most of the time but if its late the 16db setting works fine imo. the biggest thing about the 16db setting is that your not gettin the speakers to move the air which does contribute to the sound...

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5er driver

That's the trick when attenuating.......the speakers need to work enough to get you your tone also.

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stryker59

i agree..which is why normally i have the hotplate on the 8db setting, however when its late at night i use the 16db setting, and it at least retains the sound of overdriven tubes enough that i aint complainin!

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PaoloJM

This is what I was getting at without going into the physics of voice coil movement etc. The attenuator does also tone suck however. With that amount of impedance (@ -16dB and lower) in the signal path you noticeably loose some bottom and top end which is why the Hotplate has the Deep and Bright boost buttons. You'll find they make little difference at the -12dB and higher settings. They do a good job of replacing/boosting these frequencies but it's not quite the same. A combination of this and the fact that less air is physically moving leads to the tone sucking.

RachelMorgan

95% of it can be compensated for with a decent graphic equalizer. Remember your ears are also more sensitive to midrange and so there's another factor. Low volume bass and trebles you're not going to pick up readily.

These Hot Plates were not really meant for "bedroom" levels anyway, yet even with the perceived tone sucking they're better than distortion boxes. Personally, I hate distortion boxes, no matter how expensive some of them are. They suck the guts out of the amp tone.