Ceriatone Forum

I just received this amp from DHL today, 3 weeks and 1 day after I placed the order with Nik. Packed up really nicely, nothing was smashed up or broken, tubes were all good and packed carefully. Amazing considering it was thrown onto and off of a few cargo planes to make it more than halfway around the world.
Pretty hefty too, feels heavier than I thought it would but then again those transformers are really beefy. The wiring and layout is picture perfect and neat as a pin. I slapped in the tubes, and hooked it up to a Marshall 1966a mini slant cab with 2x12's and tore into it with my R8 Les Paul.
WOW!  :o
I had really forgotten how magical this circuit can sound! I mean, it's the 'standard' Marshall plexi sound, and as many people say, it's got ONE sound, but it's a damn GOOD one. This tone is heavenly, with a lot of complexity and dimension. Just a lot of stuff going on depending on how you set the tone controls, and they interact in a good way, but you need to spend the time to find your sweet spots and dial them in. I got mine equipped with a PPIMV and a half power switch. I didn't use the half power switch at all, and started out by diming the MV, and running into channel one with the volume at about 2. Got a really sparkly but fat tone with that Marshall edge to it, just beefy and nice. This channel is bright, with a top end sheen and cut that may be a little much for some people. You can dial it out with the tone controls and your guitar (both the treble and presence controls were no higher than 10 o'clock (about 4), but overall channel 1 always has that bright presence to it. I like it with the Les Paul, but a Strat might be too bright for this channel alone. Next I rolled back the master to about halfway up, and bumped up channel 1's volume to about 3 o'clock. Instant classic tone you've heard a thousand times before, from Angus and Billy Gibbons and countless other greats. The 'push' of this amp when you hit a chord is just a wonderful thing. You feel like you've got some power behind you, and it takes some of the effort out of slamming chords, you feel like you don't have to bash your guitar to get those chords to ring and carry. There's a weight behind the tone, so to speak. Really nice. But I'm more of a Jimmy Page guy, and I like the amp a little more cleaned up and not so grindy, so I rolled the channel volume back a click or so and got a nice thick sound with a lot of definition and presence. Very Zeppelinesque! Great stuff.
Next I plugged into channel 2 to check that out. This channel is darker and much bassier, and the tone controls are almost opposite to channel 1, in that I had the bass control backed down to 4, and the presence and treble cranked up in order to match the cut of channel 1. It still retained a more bassy tone signature in spite of the cranked high end.
Where it really gets great, in my opinion, is when you jumper the channels and take some time with the volume knobs and tone controls. This amp just grows huge and it really brings together the best of both channels, giving you a juicy sound with incredible overtones and a signature fatness that's both recognizable and exceedingly pleasing. I couldn't stop smiling. For me the hard part is deciding which channel will do what. In my band I definitely need a nice fat overdriven sound as well as a fairly clean sound, maybe with a little hair on it. Since it's a 4-holer I can use my A/B box and channel switch between the two, but deciding which channel will do what is my project for tomorrow.
Sorry for the long-winded post, I just really love the incredible tones of this amp and wanted to give a rundown of my impressions. Nik and his staff are making extraordinary amps for the $$$, and I would not hesitate to recommend a Ceriatone to anyone. I've been playing for a loooong time, and owned a few Marshalls along the way, including an early 70's 100 watt super lead, an original Silver Jubilee 50-watter, 6100 Anniversary, TSL,  and several more. I won't say this plexi beats them all, but I will say it has a very honest and unmistakeably classic tone. It sounds killer, is hand-wired and built like a tank, and I didn't go broke buying it - what more could I ask?! But best of all it's woken me back up to that magic tone again, and I can't put a price on that!  :chairdance:

That amp sounds great! I have a 2550 on order from Nik, but my next purchase will definitely be a Ceriatone Plexi 50. Hopefully I can order it by the end of the year.

Received mine about 3 weeks ago and cant believe how good it sounds.  :chairdance: I ordered it with the Brown Mods as I am going for that VH1 tone. I run it through a Weber  MASSLite 100 and have the volume set around 3 o'clock and just sounds sick. Luckily, I had a set of Mullard EL-34's that I have had sitting in a box for probably 15 years now and threw those in, biased with a BiasRite between 36 and 39 ma's and sounds amazing. Eventually, I want to try and get a set of Sylvania 6CA7's. Anyway, highly recommend this amp and cant say enough about Nik and his guys at Ceriatone. The build is quality is amazing but the sound is unbelievable.   

I placed an order for the same. Hopefully, it will be fun to play. I ordered without the cabinet. Anyone built a cabinet for the head! Any direction to  measurement or design or plan will be nice to start with.

Thank you.