Boss WAZA Tube Amp Expander Amplifier Attenuator

I have several tube amps that I needed to control the volume with at home during the pandemic with everyone home and finding limited time to play. The Waza TAE is great at taming the volume and getting great tone, either attenuated and reamped through the cabinet or via headphones. It also adds reverb and delays I don't have and allows me to record direct from the amps as well. I can also run my HX Stomp through the effects loop and amp the a cabinet which is something that I can't do with other products in this range. Overall its a fantastic product.

This product is amazing!

This product seems great but unfortunately I could not use all of its features because there's no support for OS X 10.11. When I asked Roland Support if I could be supplied a driver, all I got was the standard scripted "sorry for the inconvenience" and nonsense about OS X 10.11 no longer supported. Meanwhile, they have drivers for Windows 7, and ironically, have OS X 10.11 drivers for the Waza Amplifier and BOSS ES-5, 8 controllers. But what's especially infuriating... nowhere in the product's marketing materials nor specs are minimum systems requirements listed. So you spend over $1300 on something, find out it won't work with your system and what you get is "sorry...???" It wouldn't take much effort for a developer to put out a driver which, for a deprecated OS means they don't need to update it ever again... but goes to show that they'd rather say they're "sorry" because they don't care. So... I'm sending this back and to get my hard earned money back. If you're considering this unit make sure you read all of their fine print buried deep in their support sites, far from the glossy pictures and videos that demonstrate how wonderful their product is.

Right off the top, I'm taking 1/2 star because this product is quite pricey and because there is a slight change in tone, not a deal breaker and frankly, it was to be expected. That's the bad news, the only bad news. The rest is pretty stellar. There are a few scenarios where a product like this has huge usefulness for me: (1) if I have a low wattage tube amp that sounds amazing but isn't loud enough for a particular purpose, (2) if I have a tube amp that sounds amazing cranked to a certain level, but too loud for a certain venue, like a small club or home practice, (3) if I have a tube amp with great tone but lacking in effects like Reverb, Delay and/or EQ or needs an FX loop, and (4) if I want to listen to my cranked tube amp through headphones and not disturb anyone. This device takes the speaker output of your tube amp and pumps it into a reactive load, allowing you to capture the signal that includes your amp's preamp and power amp section and run that into an internal power amp with separate volume control, effects, effects loop, Impulse Responses and ouput to headphone/line/speakers. It allows you to more carefully dial in the playing volume of your amp while still allowing you to preserve all the cranked tone in a way a typical master volume on an amp cannot. To accomplish this, it uses an internal reactive load (the WAZA is a bit heavy because of this) to completely use up the output of your amp, then converts that to a line level signal that is or can be routed through some effects, then through an solid state power amp. Because that final stage is not like the typical interaction between your tube amp's output transformer and your speaker, even using the same speaker, there is some difference in tone; a little of the real tube sparkle is lost. I really don't see a way to recover that without putting another tube power section in there. The good news is that everything else about your amp, it's responsiveness and touch sensitivity and the vast majority of its tone will still be there. Let me give you a couple of examples. My Fender Deluxe Reverb sounds great to me with pedals and I normally like it with the volume at around 4 where it starts to get a bit of breakup. Sometimes, I crank it to 7-10 to get some real rockin' tube drive. But even at 4, it's way too loud for my music room at home, and beyond that, the wife gets angry, so I usually use it with pedals at volume 2. Not too bad, but wish there was more. With the WAZA, no longer a problem. Either at volume 4 or 10, I can listen to the amp at comfortable levels or through headphones, or pump it out the line outs to the mixer or recording board. And now my Fender has an FX loop! I have a 4-watt practice amp from the early 60's. It's got a small 7" speaker and 4 knobs: volume, tone, tremolo depth and speed. I love its basic vibey sound, but wish it was louder and had more control over the tone, And it could use some reverb or delay. With the WAZA, all solved! In short, this is a great, albeit pricey, tool to help you get more out of your tube amp. Also, because its internal power amp can output 100 watts, you can get a smaller, lighter amp and not have to lug around a larger beast to gigs and recording sessions. Could you replicate most of its functions for less? Maybe. You could can purchase a reactive load for anywhere between $200 to $700, or make one out of an old speaker by cutting away the cone and sealing it into a soundproof box. Then you'd need a way to convert that speaker output to line level, so $20 DI box could do that. Then an IR loader which I'm seeing now in pedal format for about $150-$200. Then add some effects, oh, and a 100 watt power amp and voila! Well, you'd end up with a mess of boxes to lug around. The WAZA tube amp expander is a unique device whose only competition right now, the Universal Audio OX, is just as pricey and not as fully featured.

There is little that this box cannot do.. and among the things it can do are: 1. Attenuator Well, technically it isnt an attenuator, but a loadbox plus amp.. but purchase as an attenuator alone is a viable proposition.. the adjustable reactive load helps fine tune the feel and tone, and most importantly the ability to add a Fletcher Munson compensation (same as old school "loudness" button on hifi) to raise lows and highs as the volume decreases makes the core amp tone more usable at lower volumes than pretty much all attenuators... 2. an fx loop Have an amp without an fx loop?.. or an amp where the core tone comes from the power amp?.. then use the fx loop of the Waza TAE to add those time based fx .. 3. Reamping Record your wet & dry signal, then reamp the dry signal for doubling or improved take with other IRs 4. presets/built in fx/IR loading/line, cab, solo & global EQ, etc etc A real swiss army knife of a must have box for anyone with tube amps.... graciously preserved the roaring tone of my Rocker 30 on 11 at non-divorce volume levels.. buy it..you will forget the price the first time you use it.

It has reactive attenuation - replicating the load a speaker would make on your tube amp. Switchable between 4/8/16 ohm loads which is a rare feature and a plus for someone with multiple amps. It has built in eq, compressor, reverb and delay. It has onboard IR speaker simulation. All of these aforementioned features lower the need and demand for plugins in your daw. It also can go directly into your daw and be used as the interface. I have compared the direct sounds to the miced speaker cabs and the loses are minimal and not noticeable in the mix. Conclusion, this is the Cadillac of reactive load box / ir / interface / reamp devices. Not to mention it’s compatible with a boss foot switch, so the live possibilities are there as well. All in all, if you like recording the sounds big cranked tube amps in the studio, this is the ticket. The price is high, but I compared it to OX which is in the same price range and is much less features. If you want to save money there’s Palmer, Suhr and two notes, but they don’t come close. I have tried them all...

I bought this for the purpose of playing at home after watching many glowing reviews of the TAE. I have a new MBP and the website states support for M1 Macs running MacOS 12. The computer can see the device as it shows up in audio/midi settings, but the Setup application crashes on launch and the editor software takes 6 minutes to launch and cannot communicate with the TAE once it does. It seems to work fine with Windows, just not with my laptop where it would need to work. Boss Support does not do any support over the phone. They only respond via email. So, you can't work through a solution and anything that takes 10 seconds to test will take 24h to update with support. This drags out any solution. Also, you're not assigned a single person. No names are used with support...you get bounced around random people. I know this because I received several emails as a response with the exact same recommendations for an attempted fix that didn't work previously. It took Boss 2 weeks of emails to tell me to try to plug it in with a USB cable, update the firmware, reset to factory settings before saying I have exhausted all support from Boss. Unfortunately, it is past the window for return...I'll be selling mine online below what I paid for it I'm sure. THE LAST thing I ever buy from Boss.

¿Caro? sí, si es costoso, pero es la mejor inversión hasta el momento, tengo un DSL100HR a un 1960AX, este aparato me da la posibilidad de exprimir los bulbos con el master en 10; pensé que había algo malo con mi equipo hasta que pude subirlo todo y a un volumen en que los vecinos no le hablen a la policía. Aún me falta probar las utilidades en su aplicación y demás... Es una joya de equipo, vale cada centavo.