[Mike Rivers]

Hugh Verdam wrote:
Well, I'm so confused tonight I don't know what to tell you. I just
tried it again. First, I plugged the cabinet back in. There is a
second external speaker jack and I plugged the DI back into that. So
there was a speaker load on the amp.

And it recorded great! So it's the speaker being removed that messes
things up, right?

No! Because then I unplugged the speaker and recorded again and it
sounded great!

Maybe the jack was sprung a bit from having the speaker plugged in for
20 years. The plug on the cable going ot the DI is probably newer, and
may even be a cheepie import that's slightly undersized and plated with
something that doesn't conduct electricity very well. So while you
didn't have an intermittent contact between the jack and the plug (that
would cause it to crackle or cut out) you had some resitance, and in
fact, it was acting like a diode and rectifying the audio going to the
DI. Sometimes this happens with patchbays, and using a different patch
cable, working it in and out of the jack a bit, or giving it a shot of
contact cleaner usually fixes the problem.

The reason why it worked straight off when plugging into the open jack
is because that one hasn't had a plug in it for years and probalby made
better contact with the plug.

I'm going to chalk this whole thing up to poltergeists.

No, chalk it up to dirty contacts. Get yourself a can of DeOxIt.

Back to the Power Soak question. If I decide to continue this and
actually find one of those (I think the Sholz version is out of
production), where does it go in the chain...

Amp - Powersoak - DI?

Yup, if the dummy load (whatever brand you get) has an output. Or plug
the Powersoak into one speaker connector on the amp and the DI into the
other connector, just as you have now only with the load in place of
the speaker. Groove Tubes makes one, but it's quite a bit more than
just a load resistor, and it's priced accordingly, about $1,000.