Lotus JohnH M2 Simple Attenuator 60 Watt
$ 329.00
Crank your amp, keep the tone, control the volume. The Lotus M2 is a reactive attenuator that lets a cranked tube amp sing at any volume — from full stage roar down to bedroom levels — with no loss of tone. It's built by Fromel under license from John Hewitt, whose acclaimed “JohnH Simple Attenuator” design it's based on.
Operation is simple: amp output → Lotus input, Lotus output → speaker. Three switches give attenuation from −7dB in 3.5dB steps down to −31.5dB. At −7dB a 50-watt amp puts out about 10 watts (great for taming stage volume); at maximum it drops to roughly 0.04 watts for true bedroom levels. It also doubles as a load box for direct-to-DAW, console, or IR recording.
Which impedance do I need?
Match the Lotus to your amp's speaker output — for example, a Super Reverb is 2Ω and a Deluxe Reverb is 8Ω. If your amp has multiple output taps, the 8Ω model is the most versatile.
In stock now: the 8Ω model. Need 2Ω, 2.7Ω, 4Ω, or 16Ω? Our pedalboard-friendly Lotus Floor Model is currently available in every impedance.
Specs
- 60 watts max input, reactive load
- Low-profile 5A switches, Neutrik jacks
- 40mm silent fan, powered by the amp — no external power needed
- Engineering-grade 3D-printed vent lid
- Compact: 165 × 103 × 54 mm, ~500g
- Extra-tall feet to clear most amp handles
Options: a heat-sink enclosure with mounting flanges (+$50) for permanent mounting inside a combo or on a pedalboard, by custom order. Custom-color vent lids are also available — just reply to your order confirmation with the color you'd like.
Passive device — no external power required for full operation.
The story behind Lotus (and why it's open source)
After trying nearly every attenuator on the market — and building a few of his own — John Fromel kept hitting the same wall: the more you attenuate, the more the tone suffers. The fix turned out to be John Hewitt's “Simple Attenuator,” a design he'd been refining on the Marshall forum since 2017. Fromel builds the Lotus under a licensing agreement with him.
Lotus is an open-source project — you're welcome to learn from and improve the circuit on the Marshall forum. A portion of every sale is donated to FRC Team 8248 (Chain Lynx), a student robotics team. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial.
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