Ceriatone Forum

Hi everybody, I am Andrea from Italy.
I am a new Overtone owner. I am pleased with the sound and here I found a lot of tips that I will try on.
But my question is the following: I read on an italian guitar site (www.accordo.it) that Overtone models may have a further step in qualitu of sound by replacing the original otuput transformer with those used by fender or marshall, giving a major fender-que or marshlles-que sound.
did someone try this modification?
Do you think it is a good idea changing transformer and do they affect so much the overall sound?
Thanks a lot. I am sure someone could give me some advice.
Andrea.

Well "quality of sound" is totally subjective. 

If you are tweaking an amp to taste, then it's best to decide what you do and don't like about the amp and what you would like to change.  *Then* attacking it was mods and tweaks.  I don't think just dropping a Fender or Marshall transformer in is going to lean the amp in any particular direction. Fenders, Voxes and Marshalls and other amps get their voice mostly from the preamp, the OT is just a little icing on the cake.  What can be attacked with transformer changes if usually trying to get a more or less open sound out of it.  Some transformer manufacturers 9heyboer) tend to wind on the warm, thick side of things, others (Mercury) tend to go for a more open sound with lots of harmonics. 

But if you really want to voice the amp toward Fender or Marshall, I would look into tone stack values first.

Nothing wrong Nik's trannies IMO.  Gig and live with the amp as is for a year so you can hear what it's about.  These amps are guitar and speaker cabinet dependent to a large degree as well.

There are tubes to swap (power and preamp), PI trimmer to adjust, OD trimmer to adjust, possible tone stack adjustments, and the use of a dumblelator in the loop.

So to  address your question, I don't believe it is a good idea to swap OT's at so early in the game.

Good luck in your tone pursuits,
Jim

I use nos tubes ranging from RCA blackplates to amperex to GE, Mullard...you get the point,  Marshall cab, celestion, Weber, Jensen...(my fav. is the Marshall 4x10 cab closed back, killer man and I mean killer),  but with out a doubt, the most exhilerating upgrade I made to this very cool OTS is the transformer.  In my opinion this amp deserves nothing more than a first rate transformer.  I put in a Mercury Magnetics transformer upon their sales reps reccommendation (he has sold several transformers to Mr. Dumble himself, or he is a liar).  Brother when I hit that first chord, nice and loud, it was like the clouds parted and REAL Godlike tone came shimmering down from the heavens.  Yes, it was just like that!  Do not do a freakin' thing to that amp until you get that crappy cheap output transformer out of there.  Dont get me wrong, the amps all sound good, but that is just it, they sound good not truly great, and it is beause the transformer is not adequate to make truly great tone.  Another good thing to do is to upgrade some of the cheaper capacitors, that will make a slight but noticeable improvement...but the transformer, dude the transformer...upgrade it to Mercury Magnetics, you will always be glad that you did.

Hey

Which specific Mercury Magnetics transformer have you used with the OTS (it's the 50 Watt edition right???)?

Thx in advance

René F

Nah...it's the amp.

Upgrade to a real Dumble, the amp would literally play itself.

We do open up lots of trannies, including said brand names, and originals, when prototyping the models.

It's the mojo dust that separates our price of about 200 vs 500 a set.

If compared to a real vintage fender OT, now those are cheap.

OK, I will upgrade the OT to same specs as those, and will up-charge USD 300.  The least is I make more money out of it.

As for the caps, if mine are cheap, then the ones in real Dumbles would be the same, on some of them.

I am not sure you'd advise someone to mod or change the caps in his 50K original. It's fine as it is, they'd say...

My experience with tranformers:

I have played though two amps with Mercury Magnetics tansformers
1) Speedster 25 (installed at time of manufacture)
2) A true 59 Bassman that had bee refurbished
Both sounded special, and I have had a chance to play through  three different '59 Bassmans and a reissue and the MM transformer made a noticeable  difference.

Having said that, my amp tech agrees with Nik and thinks that paying 600+ bucks to replace OT, PT, Choke is a waste of money, as there are many other factors that effect tone in a more significant way.

Fender transformers are cheap and I cannot imaging improving tone with them. When I refurbed my "66 Super Reverb, I used beefed up Hoffman OT & PTs and it just sounds like a Super Reverb on steroids. The casual listener probably would not notice, though.

Lastly, I am always fascinated by the lengths that people go to on this forum to refine their tone. I am always interested to see what they are doing, but every time I think about expending a bunch of time (and/or money) I think about the fact that at gig volume levels all those beautiful subtleties are lost. My amp sounds different (sometimes, a lot different) in every different venue I play in.  You get more consistency in tone when you mic it through a PA. When recording, the signal is processed so many ways that the sound characteristics that folks hear sitting in a quiet room at home are not going to be the ones heard on a recording played through computer speakers or other gear.

Transformers, while potentially enhancing tone, do not really effect "Big Picture" tone like other parts of the tone stack.

It is really only the output transformer that I am commenting on.  We are talking about 100 to 200 dollars max.  It made a very noticeable difference. Whether it is a Mercury Magnetics or a great old fender.  Maybe for most people it doesnt matter, but for me and everyone who had a chance to A B the two sounds it did.  They could not ignore the beautiful shimmering tone that now comes out of this very cool amp.  My ears dont lie and I have nothing to gain by sharing this discovery with you all except the joy that it has brought me.  Silver mica caps on the neg. feedback loop and on the bright switch noticeably smoothed out the tone and sweetened it slightly more.  As soon as I am able I will share some sound clips and you can be the judge.  Thankyou.

I agree, not only do you have to deal with room acoustics, but you might also be a victim of poor AC voltage and or dirty power.

Jim

Well Brian, when you do post the clips. I for one, will be very interested to see if I can hear the difference.
Will you be A/B ing?

 but you might also be a victim of poor AC voltage and or dirty power.

Jim
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I strongly second that thought, my last gig you could change the volume of the 60 Hz hum in the speakers by tapping on the wall socket!

I agree that there are many things that affect the tone from situation to situation, but I play this amp in a variety of settings and I just felt that there was a lack of note separation and a brittleness that was always there, especially when I was driving the power section.  With great pickups, tubes and varying speaker combinations, adjusting the ratio to my taste as well, I just felt that the tone was not as "pretty" or sweet and chiming as I thought that it should be.  I talked to a couple of different amptechs that I have worked with in the past and they both recommended a output transformer upgrade.  So I did and the problem was solved. I did not mean to upset anyone at Ceriatone by suggesting that the transformers were cheap and crappy, but I do believe that the output trans. in my OTS at least, was at best adequate.  The Mercury Magnetics just simply blew it away, and I was trying to be emphatic.  But mostly  I am just trying to share positive tonal discoveries with you all.  If you want to find a great sound in your amp or any amp for that matter, I suggest looking at the output transformer first.  I know that I will from now on.  It would have saved me a lot of shop time.  Its like taking a highly tuned V-8 engine and only putting a 2 barrel on it instead of dual 4's if you catch my meaning. Ciao for now.

Which Mercury Magnetics output transformer have you installed??? and is your OTS the 50 W edition???

Thx in advance

René

At least on my part, no offense was taken. I concur that MM OT's will produce a noticeable improvement in tone. I don't agree that a MM OT necessary to get note separation or remove brittleness from the OTS tone. I have been gigging with mine for 9 months now and it has always sounded better than anything I have played through or had on stage with it.

With all the variables that it allows, it can be a trick to dial in your tone from venue to venue (different pu's, etc.)  and that comes from experience in its use. It is true that it can be disappointing if it is not dialed in properly. It is a Ferrari, not a Honda Accord.

As we live & play in the same geographic area I would love to A/B your rig with mine. Don't know if we would ever have time for that, but maybe I will catch you at a gig sometime and you will let me check it out. I would like to hear the OTS with the MM OT!

Very interesting thread indeed !
It will be very nice if you can properly record and post here your sound samples gentlemen. Than we can hear the magic of the “crappie” and mercury OT.
We all be very thankful – please!

Something similar http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=971.0

I recently bought a Mercury Magnetics OT and choke.
Today I swapped the stock OT with the MM OT.
It's really tempting do do the OT and choke swap together ::). But I'm determined in getting a good comparison picture.

Tomorrow I can get the amp at proper volume and this weekend gigging with it.
I'll post my findings here.

Can you do a little before/after clip?

To late for that probably.
 :(

Thursday OT swap, friday testing, saturday gigging:

The OT swap makes a lot of difference; like there's a blanket removed. All the sales pitches like: note seperation, harmonic content. It's all true. It's also sitting better in the mix.

The difference isn't dramatic as posted in this topic: http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=971.0 (http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=971.0) so my opinion is that the ceriatone OT for the OTS is a  decent one.

To be specific: The cleans are way better, more highs, more harmonics, tighter lows. The Od sound; tighter lows, more harmonics but also more hairy. The smooth thing has gone. So that means tweaking again ::)

This week I'm gonna swap the stock choke(1.5 H) by a MM choke (9H). Problably the solution for the hairy to smooth sound. On ampgarage there was a builder that did this specific thing to make it a smoother.

My opinion for now: The MM OT is better, the Ceriatone OT is OK.
But in my case I have to tweak and see what a choke swap will do to the OD sound.

we need to het together soon
Groeten
Steven

Erwin,
Your experience with the MM OT is consistent with mine. But I have only had the opportunity to hear it in a quiet room at low to moderate volume.  Despite being impressed with the MM transformer, I have been hesitant to invest because I am not convinced that it the difference can be heard at gigging levels. Can you elaborate on "sitting better in the mix"? Perhaps give an example of a situation where the OTS did not perform to your expectations, but now it does with the MM OT.

Thanks

Hi John,

It's just if there fell a blanket off my speakercab with the MM OT. Hard to describe. Note separation, harmonics..., what you put in comes out very alive.   All of it can be heard real good in a band setting.
I bought the MM OT just to experiment and because they have(for most of there OT) a reputation to be top-of-the-line.
I like tweaking and building as a hobby and was planning to do a Trainwreck build. Unfortunatly I din't have the kudos to start that thing so I decided to experiment with the OT tranny. That's the story...

where did you buy your MM OT ?

Hi John,

It's just if there fell a blanket off my speakercab with the MM OT. Hard to describe. Note separation, harmonics..., what you put in comes out very alive.   All of it can be heard real good in a band setting.
I bought the MM OT just to experiment and because they have(for most of there OT) a reputation to be top-of-the-line.
I like tweaking and building as a hobby and was planning to do a Trainwreck build. Unfortunatly I din't have the kudos to start that thing so I decided to experiment with the OT tranny. That's the story...

[/quote]

Thanks, Erwin. You are making it hard to resist. On the 17th I am going to check it out in person at gig where an MM OTS is being played. That will be the clincher I would imagine.

John

How much do they cost? (yeah I'm Dutch)

http://www.cmwamps.nl/ (http://www.cmwamps.nl/)

The price on the Mercury magnetics website is in dollars; at cmw amps you can get the OT for the same price in euro's. That's cheaper then buying them directly from MM. edit: I picked it up directly from CMW amps, so no taxes, shipping costs etc.

which one is it?
and what about the choke?

It's a custom MM OT by specs of CMW amps. Fender style.
Choke: a 10H choke by MM. Code on the choke MC 10H.
I didn't install the choke yet...

This week I replaced the choke. 2 things make a noticeable difference:

The od channel is more dynamic: It saturates less, so the gain pot(level) can be set at a higher level while the channel still has the range from clean-with-a-bite- to fat lead with pick attack/ volume on guitar.

The hairy sound has gone it's nice round and smooth.

So changing the OT and choke was a real pleasant experiment. Both new parts are staying ;D

could you post the part numbers for us whosøs thinking of buying and installing the same ?

Sure: the OT I used is available only through CMW amps( http://www.cmwamps.com (http://www.cmwamps.com)/ ) CMW BF 50.
But a Bassman OT: FO50BM-16 also reported as good.
Choke: MC10H (is a marshall choke, but dumble also used 10H for some amps).

thanks :-)