Which amp kit?

Gadget

hywelg said:

There is no kit on the Ceriatone website for $1800. That's a fully built SSS. A Dumble clone kit  is $715 and a 1987 is $ 595. 

Ah, I see - sorry, my bad. I thought they were all kits. In fact, did a search for "kit" on the home page and got "no results". I see that some amps are available as kits at the bottom of their respective pages...

Still 50% more than the price of a comparative kit from the UK though it seems, based on the 2204 as an example:

- Ceriatone 2204 kit without valves and headshell = $595 + $200 shipping + ~25% import costs = £744.

- Modulus 2204 kit without valves and headshell = £500 total (inc. free shipping and no import costs).

I have no connection to either company and I'm sure they're both great products, but a 50% saving is quite a wedge (indeed, enough to pay for the headshell and valves in the case of the Modulus).

GoldenEraGuitars

I bought a ready made amp maker 18 watt Marshall clone about 9 years ago. Brilliant amp. I really to regret selling it.

They do a 4 watt tweed model for £130! I think I may have to go for it next year. 

http://www.ampmaker.com/store/WF-55-4w-tweed-style-amp.html

Haych

@Modulus_Amps  just looking at the options you offer on your website. Forgive me if this is a daft question but what difference will upgrading the coupling and filter caps have?

Same for CTS over standard pots. Is it worth spending the extra?

Thanks in advance. 

ToneControl

Gadget said:

The Modulus kits look good.

The Ceriatone kits look good too and there is indeed a bigger selection, but DAMN it'll be expensive to get one back here - I just took a look at one at $1800 + circa $200 shipping = £1500 + circa 25% import costs = circa £1875!!! ...and I still have to build it

I'm not sure I'm prepared to pay more than the cost of a secondhand Friedman BE-100 for the benefits of the building experience, especially as if/when I come to sell it I'd be lucky to clear half.

Last I looked, the fully built Dumble clones are around £1200, in a cab, delivered incl tax and duty
 The kit, with no cab is half of that.

Ceriatone dumble clones often go for 65% of of new pre-assembled price, same as Matchless or any other boutique brand
If you build yourself, you would probably at least break even

ToneControl

hywelg said:

Chalky said:

This ^ @Modulus_Amps is here in the UK, does superb work, knows his stuff, regularly shares his excellent knowledge on here for free, so if he supplies what you're looking for, why spend more money buying from a faceless company half way round the world?

I'd agree with you if indeed that was what I was suggesting. Ceriatone are hardly a faceless company, though they are indeed half way round the world. And Nik is supremely helpful with any enquiries from self builders, so to imply otherwise is just plain wrong. What you get with a Ceriatone kit is a huge choice of circuits, including some really quite complex ones, not just your bog standard 1987/1959, JTM45 etc. At least 5 flavours of Dumble clone for example. You won't get that from a UK kit supplier.

As far as I can tell, Ceriatone are the one of the (de facto) largest boutique amp manufacturers in the world, yet as you say, it's not faceless -  the owner will converse at length. I had 30+ emails from Nik whilst ordering some amps a while back

Their range is great, although I think they should avoid making models that are being made by the original manufacturers

Modulus_Amps

@Haych said:

  just looking at the options you offer on your website. Forgive me if this is a daft question but what difference will upgrading the coupling and filter caps have?

Same for CTS over standard pots. Is it worth spending the extra?

Thanks in advance. 

CTS pots are just nicer feeling than the standard Alpha style pots, They may last longer, depends on how much you use the amp though, if you want boutique quality and feel the CTS is the way to go, If I am prototypying or just building for fun then I use the alpha style pots.

Coupling caps are a black hole discussion, personally it comes down to polyester (mallory 150M, Modulus yellow caps, sozo) or polypropylene (orange drop 715p) style caps. For British gain type amps I much prefer the polyester style caps, you can't go wrong with Mallory's 150M, they offer great tone at a reasonable cost.

Filter caps, the cheaper ones are Chinese made, standard duty caps, typical of what you would find in standard household appliances, they sound good, F&T caps are German made, they are meant to last longer and have different ESR characteristics, I have never tried a blind test but I would be surprised if you could hear a tone difference between the two.

If you were a pro guitarist looking for high end quality and reliability then the upgrades make sense, if you are on a budget and want an amp that will still sound cracking and perform well then the standard grade components work great and would be inline with what you would get on most store bought mass produced product.
If you came to see me most of the amps I have are built with standard grade components and sound killer.

HTH

Haych

Modulus_Amps said:

@Haych said:

  just looking at the options you offer on your website. Forgive me if this is a daft question but what difference will upgrading the coupling and filter caps have?

Same for CTS over standard pots. Is it worth spending the extra?

Thanks in advance. 

CTS pots are just nicer feeling than the standard Alpha style pots, They may last longer, depends on how much you use the amp though, if you want boutique quality and feel the CTS is the way to go, If I am prototypying or just building for fun then I use the alpha style pots.

Coupling caps are a black hole discussion, personally it comes down to polyester (mallory 150M, Modulus yellow caps, sozo) or polypropylene (orange drop 715p) style caps. For British gain type amps I much prefer the polyester style caps, you can't go wrong with Mallory's 150M, they offer great tone at a reasonable cost.

Filter caps, the cheaper ones are Chinese made, standard duty caps, typical of what you would find in standard household appliances, they sound good, F&T caps are German made, they are meant to last longer and have different ESR characteristics, I have never tried a blind test but I would be surprised if you could hear a tone difference between the two.

If you were a pro guitarist looking for high end quality and reliability then the upgrades make sense, if you are on a budget and want an amp that will still sound cracking and perform well then the standard grade components work great and would be inline with what you would get on most store bought mass produced product.
If you came to see me most of the amps I have are built with standard grade components and sound killer.

HTH

Many thanks, that’s a real big help. Enjoy the holiday season whatever you’re doing and I’ll be in touch in the new year. 

John_A

hywelg said:

Chalky said:

This ^ @Modulus_Amps is here in the UK, does superb work, knows his stuff, regularly shares his excellent knowledge on here for free, so if he supplies what you're looking for, why spend more money buying from a faceless company half way round the world?

I'd agree with you if indeed that was what I was suggesting. Ceriatone are hardly a faceless company, though they are indeed half way round the world. And Nik is supremely helpful with any enquiries from self builders, so to imply otherwise is just plain wrong. What you get with a Ceriatone kit is a huge choice of circuits, including some really quite complex ones, not just your bog standard 1987/1959, JTM45 etc. At least 5 flavours of Dumble clone for example. You won't get that from a UK kit supplier.

Totally agree, Ceriatone amps are great, and Nick is super helpful and really friendly.  I bought a JTM45 years ago when the exchange rate was a lot better, and 'samples' slipped through customs easily.  There also wasn't a U.K. option like Moulus back then.  Today they are still good value, but relatively expensive.

PhilKing

I have a couple of Ceriatones which I bought about 12 years ago.  I have an Overdrive Special (from the days when there was only one model) and a custom built 18 TMB with an EF86 channel and a JTM45 power section.  It really sounds superb and does everything I wanted.  Nik was excellent to deal with, even though I wasn't going for a standard amp.  When I had a follow up question a few years after buying them, he came back with an answer straight away (I wanted to know if I could change the Overdrive Special to use 6V6's for a lower power sound - it is really loud when getting the right tone).

hywelg

PhilKing said:

(I wanted to know if I could change the Overdrive Special to use 6V6's for a lower power sound - it is really loud when getting the right tone).

OT but yes even unmodified I've succesffuly used those black glass Russian Mil 6P6S 6V6 variants in my OTS, even at 430 anode volts. Not sure if Langrex still have any but they were £10 a pair back then and I got 3 pairs. I've also used them in my 1987 and they were really nice in that. Rebias needed obvs

PhilKing

Nik told me to use the JJ 6V6S with rebiasing, as they can take the voltage.  Those Russian ones sound like they would be great too. I should have remembered that it is a Overtone not Mr Dumble's Ovedrive.  My excuse is that I'm 3,500 miles away from it at the moment.

MartinB

I don't know if I was just unlucky, but I had trouble with the Russian Reflektor 6p6s in a fixed-bias amp with about 410V on the plates.  At first I had no trouble biasing them and they sounded fine, but after the amp had been on for about an hour one of them started putting out a crazy amount of heat.  I was playing and not monitoring the bias at the time, and because of the black glass I couldn't see if it was red-plating, but I presume it was.  Because I wanted to record with the amp a few days later and couldn't be bothered faffing around troubleshooting it, I just borrowed the JJs from my other amp, rebiased and it has been fine since then.