Using your amp without a speaker cabinet

You can safely run our amplifiers with no load. The one thing to know: if your amp doesn't have cabinet simulation, the output will sound different unplugged. Here's why. Cabinet simulation recreates the electrical behavior of plugging into a real speaker. With traditional tube technology, an amp's electrical characteristics change drastically when connected to a "reactive load" like a speaker — and our amps recreate that effect when a speaker is connected. So on our older models without built-in Cab Sim (MicroPro, Aviator Gen 1 or Gold, 101 series, Pro Block, Tone Block 200/201, and Overdrive 200), the behavior shifts noticeably when you unplug the speaker. In plain terms, expect a snappier top end and sharper mids with no speaker attached. If you want cab-sim voicing with an older amp, plenty of companies make cabinet-simulation pedals you can patch inline between the Direct output and/or headphone jack. > On equipped models, the Direct Out uses a padded tap directly from the speaker outputs. The 101 Mini Head and Reverb have no Direct Out. Many current models — Tone Block 202, OverDrive 202, Mach 3, SuperBlock US/UK — already include Cab Sim built in. If that's a feature you want, those are worth a look.