I ordered the kit, too....Nik said he was just waiting for some parts to come in (and he should have them next week).  Once he gets those, he said I should get the kit much sooner than the amp (I'm assuming a couple of weeks as opposed to 6-8 weeks)

Did you order the head box, too or just the chassis?

I'll be posting some clips as soon as I get it in and put it together.

Okay...Mine came in on Friday!!!  I couldn't open it fast enough!  By the way, HUGE Kudos to Nik for all of his help (answering a million questions patiently), working with me to get the amp to me quickly, and a SUPERB packing job!   I wish the amp had some sort of manual, as it's a little confusing if you're not familiar with the Dumble controls.  Thank Goodness for this forum.

Okay, first impressions:  Build quality is great and seems very solid!  When I plugged it up, I immediately fell in love with the huge, powerful, punchy clean tones!  I own/have owned many, MANY tubes amps and great clean tones and loud clean headroom are a must.  This amp did not diasappoint there!  I took it out on a gig Friday night, and was having a hard time dialing in an overdrive tone that I liked.  It was very "buzzy"  I ended up just using my Xotic BB Preamp and Keeley Tubescreamer with it.  I had some of the really good local players come out and sit in and everyone loved it...it handles pedals perfectly, but I still want to learn to get the overdrive tones that I've read about for so long.  Nik has given me some suggestions, and I'll keep tweaking it.   I'll post some clips here soon....
Anyone have suggestions?  should I be tweaking the internal gain trimmer?
THANKS AGAIN NIK for everything! 

My suggestion is: give some time (a couple of weeks).

The way the overdrive works, the different switches, ecc....it takes a bit of time to get used to it. Also, the tubes are new, give them a few hours.


Marin

As I see that effect loop thing,... there are two ways of doing it.

If you take a close look at the effect loop schematic

...you'll see that using a patch cable will bypass that resistor and capacitor. So try it out and if you like it, you could remove that C&R and keep it like that.

As for RF patch in the loop... I read somewhere he used a long low grade cable which translates into High capacitance cable... and that would smooth out the highs a bit.

...but maybe it's just a myth, I don't know

 

IMHO-without being a tech, you shouldn't have to put a patch cable in your amp to make it sound good, you have another problem. If everyone who has gotten this amp is getting to hear what they want then yours  is an anomaly. so guys, are you all happy with what you hear?-serious question, I just sent a thousand dollars and I want to know
Like Marin said-check tubes and do it one tube at a time without changing anything else 

This is strange... I don't even have the amp yet but I'm passing advices how to make it sound better... maybe I should just
What I've heard from Sami and Marin, that amp doesn't need any mods but still...

... for the OD you could increase 270pf snubber caps to 330pf
Smaller snubber caps will give the OD sound a little more presence and bigger caps will mellow out the sound a bit.

Why don't you ask Nik about this, he should have a few ideas as well I think.
 

From what I have read, I would change the od trimmer settings. What I would do is turn the mid and treble down to zero, and drive the bass up. Then dial in the amount of highs. In all my old Marshalls, I never turn the treble up unless I have to cut through. But playing at home sitting right in front of any amp, you most often dont need to set the amp up with a lot of treble. Give it a whirl.

SPM nailed the tone I am looking for in this amp, give him a shout, and check his youtube video, I think he indicates his settings on that video.

JeffreyB,

I posted a thought or two in the other thread where your clip is.  Great playing BTW and I think the tone you are getting is pretty damn fine, too.  Tube compliment and trimmer settings might get you where you want to go but I'm afraid I see a soldering iron in your not too distant future....Snubbers, MV cap, OD entrance, OD bypass network, plate and cathode values are only but a few tricks in HAD's bag of mojo for dialing in "your" tone.