The real solution is to
stop fucking buying amps designed in the 1950s/1960s!
I can't believe how many people are like "I bought a Deluxe Reverb and it's too loud!" and people go "yeah you just need to spend another grand, buy a Fryette Power Station, then cut the speaker cable, wire a jack and plug to it."
No, you need to stop buying amps that have terrible volume management, whether it's no master volume at all or a hair trigger MV design. And no hardwired speakers, that's just stupid!
Of the amps I've had in over the past 20 years or so:
- Diezel Einstein. Can be turned down quite low and still sounds usable.
- Egnater Tourmaster. Can be power scaled down to 10/25/50W and turned down very low with MV.
- Bogner Goldfinger 45 SL. Power scalable with half power and low voltage modes. Can be turned down to about 90 dB @ 1m with MV on either channel. Use the fx loop return as a second master volume for even lower.
- Victory VC35. Power scalable to 11W and again can be turned as low as you need. Put a compressor up front and increase preamp gain to make it sound and feel pretty much like it does when cranked.
- BluGuitar Amp 1 Mercury Edition. Can be turned down to a whisper. MIDI/Remote1-accessible powersoak built in, so you can crank it if you want and get a mouse fart out of it.
I was rocking the BluGuitar yesterday through my 4x10 cab at probably over 100 dB @ 1m volumes, and there was zero powertube distortion in sight but the tones were just bloody glorious, and my tones are basically all about classic Marshall Superlead/JCM800, or Soldano SLO type stuff.
Otherwise the drummer sets the minimum volume level.
