I recently bought a KAT Load*Star speaker attenuator, to use with my 5e3 Tweed Deluxe amp.
I’ve only had this for 24 hours, and it’s already in the running to be my best purchase of 2026. Why? Read on for my first impressions.
Table of Contents
- What Did You Buy?
- Why Did You Buy It?
- How Well Does It Work With Your Tweed Deluxe Amp?
- Other Discussion Points
- Final Thoughts
What Did You Buy?
I bought a KAT Load*Star Speaker Attenuator.
- “KAT” is the manufacturer. It is short for Knight Audio Technologies.
- “Load*Star” is the name of the product.
- “Speaker Attenuator” indicates that this is a device to reduce the volume of a guitar amp’s speaker.
The Load*Star is an attenuator. It appears to have been originally designed to tame the output volume of the legendary Vox AC30. (It even comes with a mounting bracket, so that it can be installed inside the chassis of an AC30.)
According to the marketing, the Load*Star has been designed to be as “flat” as possible at all settings. By “flat”, KAT means that it’s designed to avoid colouring the amp tone with extra (or reduced) highs and/or lows.
I bought mine brand new from my local guitar shop, AStrings.co.uk. I believe they are the only dealer; you can also buy direct from KAT.
Why Did You Buy It?
One of the few frustrations I have with my Tweed Deluxe amp is that it’s far too loud for home use. While I’m very happy using it for silent recording, I’m worried that I’m missing out on experiencing / learning about how the amp’s cabinet and speaker shape the sound.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had much luck in finding an attenuator that’s voiced for 5e3 tweed amps.
At best, the manufacturers / distributors I’ve spoken to have been very cagey about which amps their attenuator is voiced for. At worst, they’ve claimed “universal” support, without being able or willing to confirm that they’ve tried their attenuator with a 5e3 Tweed Deluxe amp.
So, I reckon the next best thing is to try an attenuator that’s been designed for an amp that’s commonly fitted with Celestion Blue speakers. I figure that it’s got more chance of working with the speaker that Fender shipped in my amp than an attenuator aimed at more mainstream (ie Marshall-voiced) amps.
And that’s where the KAT Load*Star stands out in the market.
Thankfully, I was able to try this before I bought it. My local guitar store AStrings just got another Fender 57 Custom Deluxe in stock, and they very kindly hooked it up to a KAT Load*Star so that I could hear it for myself.
Would I have bought it if I couldn’t have tried it first? Probably not. And (spoilers!) I would have been missing out.
How Well Does It Work With Your Tweed Deluxe Amp?
With the caveat that it is very early days … I’m really happy with it.
Haven’t Felt The Need To Reach For An EQ
This one is a big, big positive for me.
Regular readers may be wondering why I’ve bought another attenuator for my Tweed Deluxe, when I already bought a Fryette PS-100 Power Station to use with this amp.
Well, when I used my Tweed Deluxe with the Fryette Power Station as an attenuator, I always felt the need to stick an EQ pedal in the Fryette’s FX loop. At the time, my Tweed Deluxe just didn’t sound right to me otherwise.
I originally bought my Axe-FX 3 to be a digital EQ (+ delay and reverb!) unit for my Tweed Deluxe + Fryette setup, so that I could instantly recall the settings I’d dialled.
I’ve had none of that with the Load*Star. Even when I run the Load*Star on its max attenuation, I haven’t once felt the need to add in some additional EQ. I think that’s fantastic.
The Attenuator Loses A Little High-End at -24 dB and Below
To my ears, I can turn the Load*Star down to -21 dB, and there’s no loss of top-end at all. Turn it down any further (to -24 dB, -27 dB or -30 dB), and then there is a noticeable loss of top-end.
I cannot tell you if this is down to the attenuator alone, or that the speaker just isn’t being driven enough to bring out its best, or something else entirely. It sounds like signal compression, but I wouldn’t say that it feels like a compressed signal.
It’s not a deal-breaker at all. My amp still sounds really good all the way down at -30 dB.
It just sounds even better when the attenuator is at -21 dB or less. For lack of a better description, the tone opens up when I turn the attenuator up to -21 dB.
Just a shame that I can’t run the attenuator that high here.
My Tweed Deluxe Is So Loud, I’m Using The Load*Star At -30 dB
I’ve got my Tweed Deluxe amp in a spare bedroom here at home. I live in the UK; our houses are very small compared to what our American cousins enjoy!
There are tricks I can use to run the Load*Star at -21 dB:
- I can plug into Input 2 on the amp.
- I can turn down the output level from the last pedal on my pedalboard.
- I can run the amp with INST on 2-3 and MIC on 0.
And it does sound fantastic like that. I’d heard that a Tweed Deluxe could be used as a pedal platform amp. I didn’t believe it myself until now.
If I set my signal chain up like that, the one thing I can’t do is use my favourite settings on the amp to get the amp producing that iconic 5e3 dirt. It’s just too loud for me in this little room. And it’s probably not fair on the neighbours either (who are just the other side the wall that my amp is up against).
I need more time to experiment, but I think I’d rather have the amp overdriving.
A Quiet Tweed Deluxe Cannot Sound Like A Loud One
… and I don’t just mean the physics of how volume affects what we hear.
We were able to run the amp loud in the shop, and use the Load*Star to gradually attenuate the signal, so that I could assess if the Load*Star affected the tone too much.
And that’s when I noticed: a fair bit of the Tweed Deluxe overdrive character comes from speaker breakup. It’s not all down to the valves alone.
As the amp got quieter, the speaker wasn’t being driven as hard, and it was distorting less and less. It’s a cool sound in its own right; but if you’re particular about your Tweed Deluxe overdrive character, it might not be the sound for you.
This topic deserves its own blog post. I’ll come back to this the next time my neighbours go away on holiday, so that I can run the amp loud without being a jerk. I’ll even stick a mic in front of the amp, and try to capture an example of what I’m hearing.
Other Discussion Points
Where To Put The KAT Load*Star?
First challenge was connecting up the Load*Star. I ran into two problems here.
I’d love to put the KAT Load*Star on top of the amp (for easy access). Unfortunately, the Tweed Deluxe’s speaker cable doesn’t reach that far. It’s nowhere near long enough.
For now, I’m not in a position to replace the stock speaker cable with a longer one.
That forces me to put the Load*Star inside the Tweed Deluxe’s cabinet. The Load*Star is a chunky beast, and there isn’t really much in the way of spare space inside the cabinet. It either has to go on the left-hand side, or the right-hand side.
Alas, I can’t put it on the left-hand side. The bottom panel would prevent access to the Load*Star’s jacks and rotary control knob.
I ended up sticking the Load*Star on its right-hand side, in the bottom right-hand corner of the Tweed Deluxe’s cabinet.
In this position, the amp’s speaker cable still reaches, while the speaker cable I’m using to connect the amp to the Load*Star is able to clear that bottom panel.
The rotary control knob isn’t as-easily accessible; I have to reach down inside the amp if I want to change it. I can live with that, because (as I’ll get into in a moment), it’s going to be a set-and-forget control for me.
I’m a bit worried about heat dissipation. I’ve had to jam the Load*Star right up against the cabinet wall. I hope the heat from the Load*Star doesn’t end up affecting the pine over time.
The Sockets On The KAT Load*Star Could Have More Resistance
I’ve accidentally pulled the speaker cable out of the Load*Star a couple of times. It happened in the shop while we were setting up the demo, and it’s already happened to me once at home.
I’m mentioning this because this hasn’t happened with other devices that I own.
(Regular readers may recall that I’m somewhat paranoid about accidentally running my beloved Tweed Deluxe amp without a load. This is my favourite amp, and I’d be gutted if anything happened to it that I could have avoided.)
In my experience, it doesn’t take a lot of force to accidentally pull a speaker cable out of the Load*Star. (Because it’s so short, it’s very easy to put tension on the Tweed Deluxe’s speaker cable without intending to, especially if the Load*Star is sat on the floor behind the amp.)
Why can this happen? It’s a combination of two things: speaker socket resistance and the mass of the Load*Star.
You know how, when you insert a cable into a jack, there’s normally a couple of clicks as the cable goes in? With the Load*Star, every click has about the same resistance. And these speaker sockets feel like they have the lowest resistance of any device that I currently own.
I’m used to speaker sockets having more resistance throughout the range, and (often) extra resistance on the last click where I finish seating a jack into the socket.
The Load*Star is also quite the chunk of metal. Heavy enough that, if it’s sat on its rubber feet, it doesn’t want to move if I tug on the cables. The socket resistance is low enough that the cable’s going to come out instead.
I’ve had the same experience with two KAT Load*Star units: one in the shop, and the one that I brought home. So it’s unlikely to be a one-off thing.
It’s not a showstopper in any way, shape or form. And it’s good practice to always check that all speaker cables are property seated before switching on any amp that’s plugged into any external device.
I Can’t Tell If The Load*Star Is Affecting The Speaker
The Load*Star is a big hunk of metal. I’ve had to put mine inside my Tweed Deluxe cabinet, where it’s pretty close to the speaker magnet.
I don’t know if putting the Load*Star that close to the speaker magnet affects the speaker’s performance or tone at all. It’s not something that I know anything about.
If you know, let me know in the comments below!
It Doesn’t Support Silent Recording
If you’re interested in getting one yourself, just be aware that the KAT Load*Star is strictly an attenuator. It is not a load box for a silent recording signal chain. You must hook it up to a physical speaker.
Most attenuators have a Line Out feature these days, so I just want to mention it in case you need that feature.
What Do You Think About The Price?
Given that it’s truly a boutique product, I think the Load*Star’s pricing is firmly in the sweet spot. It’s about the price of the Tone King Ironman II mini, which I think is its only real competition for my specific use case.
Looking at Thomann’s current listings, the KAT Load*Star is priced towards the top of the passive attenuator market.
From there, there’s a big jump into the next price bracket, where devices offer more features, but often seem to require an external power supply. External power is a no-no for me for this use case, and I don’t need the extra features either.
While there are cheaper units available at Thomann, it isn’t clear how many of them offer the same levels of attenuation that the Load*Star does. Product descriptions at Thomann don’t always include this; I have to look at photos of each unit and read the markings on the knobs.
I’d have to do a lot more research to learn how good they sound at higher levels of attenuation. Many attenuators sound good when they’re knocking off a few decibels of volume. The trick is finding an attenuator that also sounds good when they’re doing a lot of signal attenuation.
It’s also not clear if any of them are voiced for vintage American amps and their speakers, or something close to it like an amp that uses Celestion Blue speakers. As I mentioned at the start of this blog post, I’ve found it really difficult to get hold of this information, even when talking directly with manufacturers and distributors.
While it definitely isn’t an “affordable” unit, I don’t see an obviously “better” product for less money in the Thomann listings. And I’m not sure there’s a “better” product for more money, either.
Not for taming a Tweed Deluxe amp at home, anyways.
Final Thoughts
The KAT Load*Star speaker attenuator is exactly what I’ve been looking for: I’ve found an attenuator that sounds really good with my Tweed Deluxe amp.
It works so well with my amp, I feel a lot less urgency to get a Lazy J 10LC. (All the Lazy J amps have a built-in attenuator to make them usable at home volumes.) That’s still my dream Tweed Deluxe amp, and I will get one.
But until then, I can finally enjoy my Tweed Deluxe amp at home, without having to listen to it through my silent recording signal chain.
I wish Fender would license this and fit it as standard in their Tweed Deluxe reissue amps. Ignore the inevitable complaints from the cork sniffers. In this day and age, a Tweed Deluxe amp needs an attenuator for home use.
And I think that the KAT Load*Star does the job really, really well.