Yeah, I guess everyone is recovering from the holiday.   I was hoping someone else would chime in by now.

I wouldn't go messing with the way the design is setup. The reason yours is different than mine is due to the way the level and ratio controls are on yours and the HRM tonestack and gain controls on mine. This is where not having a schematic to work from make things a little harder to troubleshoot. I don't think I would consider the signal being present at the PRE Out or PA IN "crosstalk". The signal has to be present and pass though the loop when nothing is plugged in. Then when something is plugged in the circuit is broken and whatever is inbetween completes the circuit. Unless it's broken (not complete) for some reason.

Have you contacted Nik yet? He is great at getting back to people and probably has seen every type of odd behaviour in both devices.

One thing that would be good to know. Did you have the amp built and working for a period of time before doing the C-lator, or have you basically built both together without getting a real chance to know if the amp was 100% yet?

Stop the presses. I have an HRM 50 and even though I looked quickly and thought the wiring was the same it's slightly different. Similar, but different and accounts for the opposite situation. If you look at the two layouts you will see. Have you checked your relays for good connections? Or even proper orientation?

Sorry for the wild goose chase. On your photo I'm having a hard time seeing the area where your MV connects to the Pre Out. It looks like it's probably right. And so does the rest of the wring.

I will have to get back to you about the config. of the jacks. I'm about to go out for a bit.

I have the behaviour you're experiencing when you have a cable floating in the PA IN when I have a cable floating in my PRE Out and nothing else plugged in the PA IN. The master has no effect. With a cable plugged into the PA IN and nothing in the PRE Out the amp is normal.

I remember reading a few instances of people wiring their loops backwards because of looking at the layout wrong. I wish I could see your amp. Sometimes troubleshooting over the net can be confusing. But from what I take from what you're saying, yours is the opposite of mine.

Ok, I think I understand what you're saying. I just hooked up my amp the same way with just a cable floating in the PA return of the amps loop. Actually, I did it in the Pre send also. I get the behaviour you're saying when I have the cable in the Pre Send, which makes sense based on the circuit. When I'm just in the PA return the amp is pretty much normal excpept for some added noise due to the open ground. The thing that confuses me is when you say "bleeds". Becuase as I see it the signal will always be present in some way regardless of having something plugged into just one part of the loop. It's not until you complete the loop (ie: with a cable plugged into the PRE and PA) will the signal be the way the circuit was meant to be.

Could your amps loops be wired wrong? You will need to get that sorted before moving onto the C-lator. At this point all I can say is the C-lator should be very quiet. You will get transformer interference if it is opened and a single coil guitar is close to it. What tube did you use in the C-lator?

Unfortunetely it's New Years Eve and I'm in a hurry right now. But my point was if your IN/OUT wiring is wrong and if you used shorting type jacks or basically tried to wire it the way it's shown in layouts if this is wrong odd behaviour like you explained could happen. I built a D/C-lator from scratch with success so I do have some experience. Now I have no idea if the amps loop is correct. Did you build the amp? So you're saying when you use the amps loop with just an effect it does not behave correctly?

The C-lator has a rather direct signal path so there's not too many things to go wrong.

Have you looked at these photos? If you click on them they get a bit larger. Or also right click and "save picture as" to your hard drive.

http://www.ceriatone.com/productSubPages/Muchle$$Spitfire/Muchle$$SpitfireComplete.htm

Very cool. Both those guitars are excellent.

I had a Fender Bandmaster when I was first playing back in the early 80's. Back then there wasn't as much emphasis on vintage amps, and I didn't really know if I had a classic one or not. It was more than likely from the 70's sometime, but could have been older. Actually someone put the chassis in a homemade pine combo with a Fender JBL 12" speaker. I know it had a great sound, but I was into harder rock and wanted more distortion, so I sold it like a fool. 

I just realized this thread is the same amp as the other thread I have been replying to. What Nik said about the OD relay lifting from the socket is a good point. I forgot that they're socketed. In fact I put a bit of RTV Silicone to hold them in place.

I'm really starting to think this amp might have gotten a good knock in shipping.

Is this a complete kit from Ceriatone or a scratch build? Sounds like a wiring problem. There should be no sound through it in standby and should fade quickly (few seconds) when going from power on to standby. I would double check all you connections for correct placement.

That's a beautiful amp and beautifully photographed too. 

Same to you, Nik!! Have a very Happy New Year. 

I can hardly believe it will soon be a year since I purchased my OTS HRM. The best amp I have owned.

Ok, something is definitely not right. You don't have it too cranked at all.

Sorry if I forgot some info you already gave, I don't always have time to go back over the whole thread and forget the details. I remember now that you said you had a DRRI before. But, if this amp was shipped from Ceriatone, I would feel it almost a necesassity to check the bias immediately just to be sure it didn't get moved somehow in shipping. Also, the first thing I would do with an amp that was shipped so far and not performing properly is start troubleshooting with known good tubes.

I don't think anyone is suggesting you're complaining over nothing. What has Nik suggested? He is excellent at responding to problems and questions. But you will have to follow his suggestions.

Finally, I can tell you that a bad tube can cause all kinds of strange problems that can be intermittent and very perplexing and the only fix is a good one in its place. It could be a failed component internally and that will be more complicated to figure out.

I hope you get it figured out. 

The only way for us to get even a close understanding of what you're referring to is to explain in detail where all knobs are set, guitar and pups being used, type of speakers, tubes, etc. A sound clip or even better a video clip of these issues would be great also. Like when you talk about not being happy with the headroom. One persons clean is anothers not so clean. The HRM's clean channel is not spanking clean, but it's capable of getting a very nice clean tone. Once again how hard you're driving the amp is a big factor.

When you talk about "high pitch squeal" the first thing I think of other than a microphonic tube is when an amp is up so high with certain guitars/pups and in close proximity and the amp is clipping uncontrollably. A power tube that has lost its vacuum can go into intermittent squealing. I had an amp that had a bad tube due to shipping that would go crazy everytime I hit a low G.

How familiar are you with tube amps? The reason I ask is I recently realized that I have just been using tube amps all my life and know most all the little idiosyncracies of tubes and tube amps. While others are just becoming aquanted with them and not prepared for some of the issues.

It could very well be that something is wrong with your amp. Try to record some clips at different volume levels and post them. Or maybe taking it to a trusted tech in your area and get it assessed.

If you mean the setting that are in the C-tone Manual, then yes. Not by much though. Basically, it all depends on the volume I'm playing the amp. While the C-lator is sonically most useful when playing loud, the one thing that is most handy with it is playing at very low volumes. It's then that I vary the settings the most. At low levels. Drive: 11:00, Input: 10:00, Output: 9:30. This is all dependent on amp and effect setting.

At high volume the manual settings are pretty close to the norm for me. But I have pushed the output higher at times. I tend to not like the Input level much past noon. This is partially due to the TC2290's hot output.