Tone King Ironman II Mini: a neat little attenuator to tame your valve monster
5,0 / 5,0 | 
Line Out always a welcome addition to an attenuator. · Source: http://www.toneking.com/products/ironman-ii-mini/
IronMan Mini II with Line Out facility · Source: http://www.toneking.com/products/ironman-ii-mini/
This is the updated version of the Tone King Ironman Mini with some neat features for such a small box, including useful recording tools for home and studio use.
Attenuators are a great idea for some amps, especially if the amps don’t have either a traditional Master volume, power scaling feature or a PPIMV (post-phase-inverter master volume). All of these circuits are used to get a crunch or high gain setting from a valve amp at a low volume.
These new Ironman II Mini attenuators allow you to tame a 30 watt or below valve amp running at 8 Ohms. They use a tuned reactive load, which means the load pretends to be the speaker. Therefore the amp is fooled into reacting as though there is a speaker being hit by its full power. Valve amps, remember, aren’t linear, as they don’t get louder with each increment on the dial. They do, however, work harder in conjunction with your speaker. This is why you should never turn on a valve amp without a speaker attached, as you will damage the amp. The speaker or load is part of the circuit and therefore must be present.
The attenuator pretends to be a speaker taking a heavy load and fools the amp circuit into working harder. This gives you that lovely crunch tone with a touch-sensitive feel as you play.
The Ironman II Mini also has a Line output which is really handy as it means you can send it directly to your DAW or use it to re-amp your guitar. There’s also a ‘Solo’ function which can switch between 3dB and 6dB. I like stuff like this and a lot of attenuators on the market do not have these features, so kudos to Tone King for including them.
This product should be available very soon RRP GBP £349
The full spec is viewable here.
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