Jim Kelley Power Attenuator

Description

The Jim Kelley Power Attenuator utilizes a time-proven engineering standard L-Pad design. An L-Pad is an infinitely variable power divider that, when combined with a speaker, maintains constant load impedance over its range of adjustment. L-Pads have been used to adjust the volume of high fidelity music systems with complete transparency for more than 50 years. At the heart of our device is a pair of 100 watt rheostats wired in an 'L' arrangement. A rheostat is a large, power dissipating, wirewound potentiometer. Increasing the amount of attenuation moves the rheostats in unison such that as the impedance of the series rheostat increases, the impedance of the shunt rheostat decreases. As attenuation is increased, more power is diverted to the rheostats and less is conveyed to the speaker. Maintaining constant load impedance at all attenuation settings allows the natural tone of your amplifier to come through at virtually any power level. This is a rugged, good looking, high power device with 30 years of performance tested experience on stages around the world. Ever notice what happens when you listen to music at low volume? The high-end and low-end become less prominent. Stereo systems have a Loudness switch to compensate for this, and now due to popular demand the Jim Kelley Power Attenuator also has 3 levels of Treble Boost compensation: 0 dB, +3dB, or +6dB. The exact amount of compensation varies as needed with the amount of attenuation. Webster's dictionary defines dynamic range as the ratio of the strongest to the weakest sound intensity reproduced by an audio system. Turning down the volume on your stereo reduces the dynamic range of the sound by reducing the strongest sound intensity. This is what a power attenuator does - the advantage being that it allows you to utilize your amplifier to its full capacity.