Rivera RockCrusher Gold Face Power Attenuator/Load Box for Amps

Rivera’s RockCrusher power attenuator and load box could be your gateway to epic tube-amp tonal bliss. The tone of a tube amp is directly related to the power of the signal it receives and how much amplification is added by the tubes themselves. In other words, if you’re not cranking up your tube amp, you’re not really hearing its full tone! Unfortunately, it’s not always possible (or comfortable!) to turn up your tube amp to its tonal sweet spot, and that’s where Rivera’s RockCrusher comes in. Put the RockCrusher between your amp and speaker cabinet, and you’ll be able to crank up the tone on your amp while keeping your volume down.

The RockCrusher’s reactive load network is constantly maintaining the proper relationship of impedance and inductive/capacitive reactance. In guitar-speak, that means the RockCrusher lets you push your amp to its limits so that your tubes reach their tonal potential all while keeping your volume down. If you play a tube amp and want the ability to get killer tone out of it at reasonable volumes, the RockCrusher is a must-have. Beyond that, this version of Rivera’s RockCrusher boasts a gold face for an eye-popping appearance.

Tube amps interact with the impedance load that a speaker cabinet puts on the amp’s output — if you plug into your amp and just hook the amp’s direct output to a recording device, you won’t get the tone you expect. By hooking up the RockCrusher to your amp’s speaker outputs, it interacts with all of the tubes in your amp — not just the preamp tubes you hear from your amp’s direct output — to provide the true articulate and responsive tone you’re looking for.

What does this mean for you? You can harness every tiny bit of tone your tubes have been designed to put out, and you get the sound of your amp and pedals, all without worrying about volume. Onstage, the decreased stage volume allows for better monitoring situations and lets your front-of-house engineer mix your signal without fighting your stage levels. In the studio, this means you get to lay down no-compromise guitar tone without bleeding sound into other mics. You paid for every last tube in your amp, so use them!