headphone input addition to tube amp

[PeachFuzz]

Hello,
I have a Fender Supersonic 60W 112 combo and it is to loud to play where i now live. Anyone help me out on how to rig this for headphones, and adding a load so I dont fry the power amp? Can I possibly make a box with 2 jacks, one going to the main speaker output jack with a patch cable, and a second jack for the headphones, and add a 100 ohm 10 watt resistor between them? I dont want to hurt this amp. Thoughts?
Thanks!!!!!!

 

[ruben alstad]

Hello,
I have a Fender Supersonic 60W 112 combo and it is to loud to play where i now live. Anyone help me out on how to rig this for headphones, and adding a load so I dont fry the power amp? Can I possibly make a box with 2 jacks, one going to the main speaker output jack with a patch cable, and a second jack for the headphones, and add a 100 ohm 10 watt resistor between them? I dont want to hurt this amp. Thoughts?
Thanks!!!!!!

if you want to use the amp under a dummy load, you need to use the same impedance as the speaker, as for the headphones,
something like a 10k or 1k variable resistor parallel with the dummy load,
one of the headphone leads going to the variable tap and the other lead going to either side of the resistor.

The tone is going to change because of the speaker's impedance normally isn't always the impedance its rated for,
it might dip down or up drastically depending on frequency. all in all it needs a 8ohm dummy load, (or what the original speaker is rated)of the proper wattage.
and resistors 50watts+ can cost a bit. you might want to wind your own resistor out of wire, but you would be very careful with that since it ends up being a big inductor,
Google bifilar wire wound resistor.

sorry for bad English.

 

[PeachFuzz]

So, if I use an 8 ohm 100w power resistor , or 2. 16 ohm 50w in series, with same impedence variable resistor in parrallell, hooked up between 2 mono jacks one runnining patch cord to main speaker input jack, and the other for the headphones I will be ok? Any and all thoughts welcome and appreciated, again, I do not want to arc tubes, or transformer, or other.
Thanks

 

[PeachFuzz]

I have another idea, what if I have 2 input jacks, one for plugging in the speaker, one run a cable to the main speaker out on amp, use a dpdt switch, center poles connected to main speaker out jack, switching one side to speaker jack, and other side switching to a 200w 8 ohm resistor. When switched to 8 ohm resistor this will kill the main speaker, and then I can come out of the preamp out of amp to my recording interface, and use the headphone out on my interface. Thus, headphones with a tube amp?

 

[ChrisA]

I have another idea, what if I have 2 input jacks, one for plugging in the speaker, one run a cable to the main speaker out on amp, use a dpdt switch, center poles connected to main speaker out jack, switching one side to speaker jack, and other side switching to a 200w 8 ohm resistor. When switched to 8 ohm resistor this will kill the main speaker, and then I can come out of the preamp out of amp to my recording interface, and use the headphone out on my interface. Thus, headphones with a tube amp?

You can use a switching jack that switches in the resistor when the speaker cable is removed. The problem is you can only have one 8 ohm speaker jack if you do it that say.

A BETTER headphone experience is possible. Rather than using a simple resistor as the dummy load build a more realistic dummy load. try putting a 1mH air-core inductor in series with the speaker. Reduce the resister by the DC resistance of the inductor. These are more complex dummy loads but this gives good "bang per buck" or should I say "80% performance at 20% cost."

 

[PeachFuzz]

Actually the simplest way i just found out with my amp and setup is:

I have a Fender Supersonic 60w112 combo, and wanted to use the amp but with headphones only. This amp is equipped with Power amp input jack, and preamp output jack. If I plug a regular 1/4 jack not wired to anything into the power amp in, this disconnects the power amp from the preamp. I have a recording interface, so I plug the interface into the preamp out, and listen to the amp via the interface headphones, and the power amp, power tubes and transformer is just sitting there on idle. So there is no signal going to the power amp, and no sound coming out of the speaker (speaker is still plugged in, and dont have to worry about the load). The previous post using a dummy 200w resistor worked, and that was what i was doin before i found out i could do this.