Guitar Gear Forum

The Captor is absolutely one of the best purchases I've made in the last 10 years.

$230 to use your tube amp completely silent through headphones is worth it to me. Sweetwater has em on sale:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... ator-8-ohm

The Mesa cab clone is garbage. It is a resistive load which means it has a 150w resistor soaking up the amp power. The Captor is reactive and essentially is a speaker motor that drives a fan to keep it cool AND respond like an actual speaker cabinet. There is absolutely no comparison and that's why all of the reviews of the cabclone are bad.

Vladimir Putin wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 7:01 pm The Captor is absolutely one of the best purchases I've made in the last 10 years.

$230 to use your tube amp completely silent through headphones is worth it to me. Sweetwater has em on sale:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... ator-8-ohm

The Mesa cab clone is garbage. It is a resistive load which means it has a 150w resistor soaking up the amp power. The Captor is reactive and essentially is a speaker motor that drives a fan to keep it cool AND respond like an actual speaker cabinet. There is absolutely no comparison and that's why all of the reviews of the cabclone are bad.

Ahh I see. I know the baked in sims were generally reviled wasn't sure of the difference in terms of the the load itself

spawnofthesith wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 6:44 pm

Vladimir Putin wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 4:37 pm Yeah man, I use a regular Captor.

I'm not using it to record most of the time. Just running through the IRs in to headphones or my monitors for late night playing. I think you're on the right track with the Sonicake unit being run after the Captor though

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 4:54 pm Yeah if you already have the IR pedal any load with a line out will do. The regular Captor is a good unit for that purpose.

Yeah, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't already peeping at used captors

I'm hate spending money on "non exciting" gear, and it looks like I could get a mesa cab clone for a fair bit cheaper than a captor. I feel like I've heard that the built in cab models in these were not good, but the line out skips the speaker emulation so I could just go from there into the sonicake

If you want to spend even less, any attenuator with a line out would do just fine. Even that $120 Bugera attenuator, which is actually pretty decent. Just turn the attenuation all the way down to use it as a silent load and use the line out to the IR loader.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... attenuator

spawnofthesith wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 7:04 pm

Vladimir Putin wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 7:01 pm The Captor is absolutely one of the best purchases I've made in the last 10 years.

$230 to use your tube amp completely silent through headphones is worth it to me. Sweetwater has em on sale:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... ator-8-ohm

The Mesa cab clone is garbage. It is a resistive load which means it has a 150w resistor soaking up the amp power. The Captor is reactive and essentially is a speaker motor that drives a fan to keep it cool AND respond like an actual speaker cabinet. There is absolutely no comparison and that's why all of the reviews of the cabclone are bad.

Ahh I see. I know the baked in sims were generally reviled wasn't sure of the difference in terms of the the load itself

The whole unit sucks and is a bad design. If the Bugera is a reactive load like the Captor then like Billy said it will work just as well. This type of load box will preserve the feel of playing your tube amps.

The original cab clone was a complete garbage piece of shit, but the second version is supposed to be much better. But yeah, a load is a great idea. I've had the Suhr, and currently have the Driftwood. They each sound different. Like enormously different. So look into them if you do decide to get a load, and find one that mimics a speaker EQ curve that you like. They all cut frequencies differently, too. From watching demos, I thought the Captor cut too much low end for my taste. The Suhr was pretty balanced. The Driftwood has a metric shit ton of low end. Just something to keep in mind if you go down the load rabbit hole...just do some research and pick the one you think will work best for you.

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 7:12 pm

spawnofthesith wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 6:44 pm

Vladimir Putin wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 4:37 pm Yeah man, I use a regular Captor.

I'm not using it to record most of the time. Just running through the IRs in to headphones or my monitors for late night playing. I think you're on the right track with the Sonicake unit being run after the Captor though

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 4:54 pm Yeah if you already have the IR pedal any load with a line out will do. The regular Captor is a good unit for that purpose.

Yeah, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't already peeping at used captors

I'm hate spending money on "non exciting" gear, and it looks like I could get a mesa cab clone for a fair bit cheaper than a captor. I feel like I've heard that the built in cab models in these were not good, but the line out skips the speaker emulation so I could just go from there into the sonicake

If you want to spend even less, any attenuator with a line out would do just fine. Even that $120 Bugera attenuator, which is actually pretty decent. Just turn the attenuation all the way down to use it as a silent load and use the line out to the IR loader.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... attenuator

Using the bugera like that its not technically a "load box" because I still have to have the cab connected right? So the cab is still taking the load?

And I guess how would a setup like that compare to all the different impedance curves of reactive load boxes

spawnofthesith wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 7:23 pm
Using the bugera like that its not technically a "load box" because I still have to have the cab connected right? So the cab is still taking the load?

And I guess how would a setup like that compare to all the different impedance curves of reactive load boxes

No. It becomes a load box with the attenuation set to the lowest position labeled "Soak" . No cab needed.

It's a resistive load so it will be a bit stiffer than a reactive load, but IMHO not a huge deal, especially if you're using just for home jamming. If you are recoding with it than the reactive loaded sounds/feel more natural, but it's not a night and day difference. Eddie Van Halen was using a resistive load on his classic W/D/W rigs and it sounded fine.

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 10:37 pm

spawnofthesith wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 7:23 pm
Using the bugera like that its not technically a "load box" because I still have to have the cab connected right? So the cab is still taking the load?

And I guess how would a setup like that compare to all the different impedance curves of reactive load boxes

No. It becomes a load box with the attenuation set to the lowest position labeled "Soak" . No cab needed.

It's a resistive load so it will be a bit stiffer than a reactive load, but IMHO not a huge deal, especially if you're using just for home jamming. If you are recoding with it than the reactive loaded sounds/feel more natural, but it's not a night and day difference. Eddie Van Halen was using a resistive load on his classic W/D/W rigs and it sounded fine.

Ahh I gotcha. Interesting, I’ll think on it, I’m not in a huge rush or anything. Captors are pretty cheap rn tho so might be worth it not to cheap out as much as possible

Just ordered a captor

Nice! Hope you dig it as much as I have.

Nothing like running your gig rig at full tilt and getting glorious tone without disturbing the neighborhood