I'm not actually any kind of authority on this, but since I built mine I joined up in the ampgarage forum and have seen lots of pictures of dumbles and dumble clones with the heater wires up in the air. I've also seen some newer builds from Nik where he's done this - I know he has lots of pictures of heater wires down on the bottom also.

I'm not sure, but I'd guess that installing these wires last, up in the air might be a bit easier. Soundwise I'm not sure it really makes much difference - as long as you keep some distance between the heater wires and the various signal wires to keep noise down. What I can tell you is that my amp sounds absolutely fabulous, and is quieter than any other amp I've ever owned, so low heater wires can work well.

Based on what I've learned since I made mine, I'd consider waiting on the heater wire and installing it after doing everything else, up in the air over all the other wires. That seems to be the way most dumbles were wired, and is how Nik is doing it currently. You CAN do it the way I did it (see my build thread http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=1952.0), but it's a pain to do it neatly.

And I see you've made the same mistake I did - you'll probably want to remove half of the front and back hardware in order to install the tube sockets and ground wire connections and fuse. It would have been a lot easier if i had held off on the front and back stuff... but it's so tempting to see what the knobs are going to look like!

No fizz on my BM 50w od channel. I recently tweaked the treble trimmer to 12 oclock, and now it doesn't sound boxed up like it used to. As plastic suggested, you may have been fixing a wrong tube situation with a much more complicated fix than is necessary.

I just used pliers and screwdrivers to put my BM50w together. Nut drivers can be nice, but aren't necessary.

My BM 50w is easily the best amp I've ever played through. I've never had a session with it that hasn't been fabulous. The low end boominess seems to be evening out a bit as it burns in - I've only had it for maybe 3 months, and don't have that much playing time on it yet. And there's no lack of high end certainly. The clean channel is a thing of wonder - yes, it's got a lot of the fender sound, but it's also got a huge amount of integrity, depth and dumble warmth. And the od channel is simply amazing - it just does the best lead sounds I've ever heard, and I really haven't tweaked the internal tone trimmers to my satisfaction yet.

Tubes - I'm starting to think I may have stumbled into a really good combination, partly by accident, but also by reading the various tube threads here. Nothing complicated - just Tungsol 12ax7's in v1-3, and a matched pair of JJ 6L6GC's for the power tubes.

I still haven't posted pictures of my completed amp, as the cabinet isn't quite done yet - I just got all the hardware together, and the box is built, but not finished yet, so it'll be another few weeks most likely.

I still need to make a new speaker cabinet - I'm leaning in the direction of a 2 x 12 in the style of the Hard Truckers JG-1, and am weighing my options for speaker choices. This is still off in the distance projectwise - I'm also planning on building a new guitar in celebration of my new amp (as if I need an excuse...).

I've had some thoughts along this line too. Being locked into one od tone, no matter how excellent it is, doesn't seem like an ideal situation. What I'd like to do is find some empty space on the bottom or back of the chassis, room enough for 3 small pots, and drill holes, and install some pots, and sub them for the trimmers that are buried inside the amp. Finding a good place is the trick I think - you'd want the wire run to be fairly short, and away from other electrical interference. Hmmm...

On my HRM BM this is true until I engage the PAB - then the tone stack is bypassed. This is one of those things that I'm not sure is true for all models or not - maybe someone knows? It's not mentioned in the manual. I was getting a bit frustrated with my drive channel until I discovered this - without the PAB engaged, I just couldn't find a really clear sounding overdrive - now I never use the drive channel without the PAB engaged.

I'm not sure if that's the right one or not, but the mouser part isn't right - you'll want a 68k resistor, probably at 1% tolerance (although that probably doesn't matter much), and it looks like at least a 1 watt version. The exact brand and tolerance rating won't make much difference, as it's only a resistor, but you'll want the right watt rating so it doesn't burn up.

You may not have downloaded the right manual. OR you may have a modded amp. There are several flavors of OTS amps - some have the gain pot on the back stock, some don't but the owners have added them on. The bluesmaster versions have the external gain pot, but the plain ots and the hrm's don't.

Also, the pab footswitch is going to work differently depending on what kind of amp you're talking about. I think. I'm still a little vague about the way the pab works in the different varieties of these amps - this is something the manuals are unclear about.

FWIW I have my gain knob straight up at 12 oclock. And run the preamp volume at 7, and the drive knob at about 8. But I like a really hairy overdrive sound - old school hard rocker here.

You only attach the core to the terminal strip. Don't want ground loops.

I've got JJ 6L6's in my 50w bluesmaster. Still tons of bass.

I can't even conceive of using Rane's setting with a les paul - it would be pure mud with my amp. Rane - do you have any mods to your bluesmaster? Could you try it without the kleinulator and see if that make a difference? Or maybe you have really bright speakers? Edit: Oh, I see you have some EVM12's - they're fairly bright from what I've heard - maybe that's what makes it work for you.

Congratulations! Do you have any pics you can post?

Yes, I got the 50w Bluesmaster. It's been many years since I've played gigs, but I used to play out a lot, and my favorite amps back then were a pair of blackface amps - first a pro reverb and then later a twin reverb. Most of my gigs were as a rock player, so having a good distortion sound was a must, but even so some 75% of my playing on any given gig was with a normal clean sound. So having a killer clean sound made life a lot funner.

And the bluesmaster has the best clean sound of any of the amps I've had since the fenders left - it's a pure joy to play through. And of course the overdrive channel is simply stunning sounding also, but the clean channel has that rich, chimey high end, smooth but roomy midrange that the best amps have. I'm not totally convinced about the low end yet - there's too much of it, and it's hard to find the right setting on the dials to get enough of it, yet still have it tight sounding - there may be more break in time needed, or perhaps some experimenting with tubes. I currently have tungsol 12ax7's and JJ 6L6GC's in there - just standard stuff I was able to get at the local music store.

And I really need to upgrade my speaker situation - the knockoff 4x10's I'm playing through are in the dull and lifeless department.

I find that the way the first volume control works is pretty close to the way I remember the volume control working on my old twin - pretty much clean up until about 7 or 8, when just a bit of light break up starts. I'm playing a strat with emg's through it, but it also has the mid boost knob which emulates the output level of humbuckers - with that turned up you get quite a bit more breakup. One thing I've found with the overdrive channel - the overall sound of it can be extremely affected by the setting on the initial volume control. If you want to get into the heavier marshall/mesa type sounds, turn that first volume control up to 7 or higher, and have the OD gain pot set somewhere in the middle. Back the initial volume off to about 5, and you'll still have a lot of distortion, but it'll be a lot more polite sounding.

It was quite a hard choice for me, as I'd had no first hand experience with the many variations of the amps, and only had recorded demos to go by. I was swayed towards the bluesmaster because of the promise of the fender blackface sound of the clean channel - I really love that sound, and as it turns out it works really well for that. And I figured with the separate set of tone trimmers for the overdrive channel, I could really personalize the drive channel, as I use it a lot, without having to compromise the settings of the clean channel.

50w vs. 100w - this was also a tough choice. At this point in time I'm mostly an at-home type of player, but like to get into the woolier sounds of the amp, without peeling my ears off. Or my neighbors. And even with my little 4x10 cab, this thing gets much louder than I can take really quickly.

Sounds like fun! Oh... it is! I'm still in nearly the same state you're in - finding my way around this amazing amp.