Ceriatone Forum

any ideas such as tube changes to get more clean headroom from the OTS, mine starts getting dirty before "3" on the master volume.

my settings are.  volume 5, treble 4, bass 5, mids 6. mid on, rock, bright off. master needs to stay low too. i use single coil guitars.

will a *****lator help to increase headroom? since it can send less signal to the poweramp therefor staying cleaner.

You could try Kt66s.  I have a Vintone Crystal 38 and tried all kinds of tubes in it, EL34, 6L6 and several others.  All broke up to quick.  Went to English made GEC Kt 66 and man what a difference, but they are expensive.  I thought about putting them in my OTS but it is 100 watt and I don't need any more clean headroom and to find 4 matched KT66s would be real expensive.  Might need to check with Nik and see if amp can handle as they draw 1.5 amps where as the 6L6s draw .900 amps.

If you can find some 7581A Sylvania tubes these are rated at 35 watts each.  This should also give more clean headroom.

My OTS (with single coils, volume on 6½, rock on etc) mine doesnt get dirty until 7!! on master vol.
Check the biasing of the output tubes. Yours must be skyhigh like 50mv or so  :o. Get it down to 30mV and your amp will be clrean  :)

+1

thanks guys. i'll check the bias. this amp just gets so much power tube distortion. if i crank the master on the clean channel it gets past vintage marshall territory gain wise.

You may also want to check the internal OD trimmer... From your describsion it sounds like it set way to high

In clean mode?  :-X

Hehe maybe i should read the whole thread next time... Just read "past vintage marshall territory gain..." my fault... of course the OD-trimmer has no effect on the clean channel... :)

Honestly, I avoided posting this earlier because I figured there were people with more experience with the D*mble/Overtone that would bring it up.  I know it's been mentioned at this forum before by a few people, including Nik.

If you're cranking the Master Volume, you're doing it wrong.  The D*mble style preamp/master doesn't work like most MV amps.

For maximum clean headroom, you want the Master Volume around 11-12 o'clock and the channel Volume around 12-3 o'clock. 

I can't remember why this is, and can't find a reference why it works this way online, but it's one of many D*mble ODS quirks everyone passes on to one another. 

Somewhere I'm sure you can find a site or post with recommended D*mble ODS settings that you can apply toward the Ceriatone OTS.

Put for now, Master Volume around 11-12 o'clock, Volume somewhere between 12-3 o'clock.

My master goes to 3 o'clock before overdrive - with a strat and volume on 6½ !! ;D

i know this is a preamp distortion amp. but if i had my master at 12-3 oclock like you said the clean channel would not be clean at all

I said Master at 11-12 o'clock...clean channel Volume at 12-3 o'clock. 

I'm just repeating what I've read a dozen or more times, including here.
Here is a whole thread on the matter...
http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=890.0

my clean volume is at 12 oclock and my master never goes above 9 oclock because it just breaks up too much

Which is why you need to check your bias   ::) .............. Have you done that ???
Get your bias down to 30-35 mV

If this doesnt help you have an error in your amp, somewhere   :-[