Bugera PS1 Power Soak Reviews

Great solution for loud amps

I bought it because I realised I could never get a good tone out of my amp without cranking it and the neighbours calling the police.

Sound wise it does feel like it smoothens up a bit the sound of the amp but it still keeps the overall quality of the signal.

You could probably get a better sound by buying the ones that are more expensive than the amps themselves but that doesn't make sense to me at the moment so I would really recommend this one if you want to play your favorite tube amp at home.

First attenuator

Using it with a Bugera V22 Infinium, it works a charm, I can now break up the amp and not my ears. Little colloration as far as I can tell, and it's nice to be able to actually disconnect the amp's speaker at will to just use DI to a mixing console/soundcard.

Does the job.

I have never used a Power Soak unit before, but this one did everything it was advertised for.

Leaves absolutely no trace of sound or gives you as much as you want.

Only minor thing could be that big rotary switch which feels a little "odd" like something is not well fine-tuned in there.

But no complains, it does what it's supposed to do!

It's really good at this price range. What I have noticed is that it increases a little bit the gain/distortion compared when it's not connected, but not the bass/mid/treble, so i back down the gain a little bit to have the exact same sound. The manual is not very clear for all the options.

Once it is connected the amp is at half power. Meaning for a 50w amp, the maximum rating will be 25watts.

The power soak knob, is what controls the output, which means that if you use the line out, which is the second knob, you still need volume coming out. That was unclear to me as I thought I could do a "silent recording" with no sound coming from my speaker whatsoever. It is useful however if you don't have a microphone and want to record or sent at a PA at the same time.

Overall it is a great product, small, light, that doesn't need an extra outlet being passive that can tame down a large amp (up till 100w) head and enjoy it in an apartment.

absolutely necessary for home praktice. i have a marshall origin 20h and bugera is the only way to hear the amp at bedroom levels. highly recommended

Great and affordable

I use this product to tame my Badcat hot cat amplifier. The PS1 does exactly what it says, you can tame a monsterous loud amplifier to bedroom levels, and it does a great job.

Since I bought it I was cranking up my high gain channel and I was getting a big headroom coming out from my speaker without having the police stepping in my door every week :)

Yes there is a slight less high end/ treble when I was turning the output knob below 40% but this was so unnoticeable that with a small tweaking of amp eq I was getting the same sound in both channels without the PS1.

The PS1 doesn’t get hot at all during operation and I’ve noticed that the back of my amplifier / valve section was also cooler compared to without the PS1. Its build like a tank with the solid metal construction and the knobs does not feel flimsy at all.

My only complain is that the balanced XLR output cab simulation (which is an extra feature ) does not sound like my cabinet on a mic When I plug it directly to my sound card, but again the primary use of PS1 is power soak / attenuator and not a speaker simulator.

It would be great if it had a better speaker simulator like some other (and more expensive) attenuators have, but for 75 euros its a steal!!! I couldn’t be happier with the product, it is worth every cent.

Excellent Product

The PS1 is an excellent attenuator and an essential piece of equipment for my amplifier. It keeps the volume level as quiet as I want, allowing me to get the rich harmonics and breakup of my tube amp without losing tone. It is a remarkable piece of equipment for the price. I have also found the line out and xlr out to be very useful.

Best £60 quid ever spent

Just received my PS1. I ordered this after seeing Phil McKnight comparison and wow I am not disappointed. I just used this on my Marshall Astoria and my Marshall Bluesbreaker.

For the first time. I could let these Amps breath without bursting my eardrums, or blowing out my windows or being arrested for noise pollution. What a great experience even the speaker sag is there, no more pedals needed for AC/DC just crank the amp attenuate and hey presto. Maybe there is some high end tone loss and a little fizziness ( just turn the Amps gain down (Astoria) ) but for £60 quid!!! really it’s that good. Don’t hold back buy this you will not be disappointed.

Not good for a clean amp: Fender 65' DRRI

When my roughly 8 years old AlenGeere WattKiller 100 stopped working I needed a new attenuator for my Deluxe Reverb. Reviews were good as well as the price for such unit. So, I ordered one. Since I didn't have the chance the compare with my old unit. I couldn't be sure about the sound quality at first. But now I am sure that it adds a considerable amount of distortion to the amp's output through the loudspeaker. The sound is much cleaner when I remove the attenuator between the amp-out and loudspeaker. For a high gain amp, this might be a issue that one can ignore, but not with a clean amp. Thus if you consider this product for a clean amp, I wouldn't recommend it. If I wouldn't have missed the return period, I would definitely return it and look for alternatives.

In my opinion the unit lacks of a very important feature though it is very interesting one with 3 output options and 2 control knobs for speaker output and line-out: Bypass switch! It would even make it okay to keep the unit for me! I could activate it when I need amp overdrive and bypass it when I play clean in lower volume levels. Sadly, it doesn't have such feature...

Now I am looking into repairing my old attenuator and trying to find a buyer for this one. :(

Best result for a good price!

With the Bugera PS1 I am able to get the full sound I want out of my Fender ’68 CUSTOM DELUXE REVERB®, on any volume without breaking the room window.

This equipment is highly recommended for al guitar players who are using a tube amp at home.

Also the hum and other noise I had without the

PS1 connected is completely gone!

No doubt, this is a perfect Power Attenuator!

better save money for a better product

i wanted to reduce the volume of my evh lbx coz it havent master volume build on it.the result wasnt so good as i read at reviews.first it cuting a LOT the high end of my amp,the best sounding was at 100% ,so 0% lower volume but when you pluging in the power of the amp reduce at half.so its not true bypass.another issue is when you crank the amp after 35% of the volume the sound turning really muddy.

looking for rivera now :)

iam not complaining or something ,was my first power soak and i was to test how it works until i get a real thing.

pros:only the cost

cons:everything overall

Works very well

I bought this to tame my insanely loud non master volume Marshall SV20 Plexi head and get some cranked Marshall tones without destroying my hearing. Very happy with the result. Only thing I didnt like is the scratchy volume adjustment knob. Something metallic is rubbing. I ought to send it back for replacement but I cant be bothered as it works just fine and once set I dont really touch the volume any more. Great value for the price.

Great affordable power attenuation

I watched a You Tube video by Phil McKnight who compared the Behringer unit to a more expensive power attenuator and the outcome was there was little or no difference from the two units. The Behringer PS1 does exactly what it it says and is easy to use. I cannot understand why someone would want to pay more for this sort of product and for home use its ideal

Better than more expensive option

I've tested 3 attenuator:

Bugera PS 1 at ¤79

Jettenuator at ¤128

SPL Reducer at ¤369

The SPL and Jettanuator use fancy aluminium housed resistors, the Bugera has plain ceramic resistor that sit elevator from the pcb for cooling.

All 3 devices have just resistors inside, I was expecting some additional components in SPL to justify the price, but only the housing is nicer, the electronics are not.

The SPL has a noisy and cracking potentiometer, the other 2 are noiseless when adjusting the damping level.

The Bugera has an extra feature in the dail that consists of a magnet, a metal plate and an unknown wired component. I'm not sure what this is for, but I think it's to stabilize the resistance of the potentiometer. The more expensive Jettenuator has the same potentiometer but without these extra components.

I didn't have the SPL available for a side by side test, so I only tested the Bugera and the Jettenuator side by side. They sound almost exactly the same, the Bugera is slightly smoother and the Jettanuator sounds slightly more brittle. To me, the Bugera is the more realisticly sounding device.

On both you lose some depth in the sound. Although I find the sound surprisingly good.

Even if all were the same price, the Bugera would be a clear winner for me. The SPL is very disappointing at that price level.