Separate head and cab loaded with Celestion Gold speaker. I run my guitars straight into the amp with a Strymon Blue Sky reverb in the effects loop, no K-lator or D-lator required. Highly recommend Strymon FX, these units do not screw up the sound of the amp. No OD/distortion pedal can equal the built in overdrive of the OTS, IMO.

Thanks, glad you like it. No, I haven't tried EL34's, the Les Paul naturally has a rich thick low/low midrange.  The clips were recorded with bass control at 3.5. Turning it down to about 1 improves the definition of notes on the 5th and 6th string, particularly with regards to clip 4. On the other hand on clip 1 the lows sound great on clean strumming, because it almost makes it a decent substitute for a big bodied acoustic guitar. Although, if I was doing a recording with bass & drums along with that clean guitar in clip 1, I would definitely EQ out most of that low end.
I have, a 61 reissue SG that does not have the same rich low end as the paul, but sounds great in it's own way. It's more a matter of the character of the guitar, and setting the EQ's to suit , than changing tubes, I think.

Some sound clips :

http://s245.photobucket.com/albums/gg79/axiology_2008/?action=view&current=CeriatoneOTS50.flv

2002 Les Paul Standard, Burstbucker pickups straight into amp with Strymon BlueSky Reverb in FX loop,  recorded into Cakewalk SONAR DAW using SM57 Mic. Small(2-3db) amount of compression added. I have the internal overdrive pot set quite low 9- 10 o'clock. Amp tubes - Power - TAD 6L6, V1 is Tung Sol, V2 and V3 JJ's. Celestion Gold speaker.

6 short clips strung together into 1:
1. Clean Country/Folk/Rock
2. Clean Jazzy
3. Rockabilly? - Overdrive at 2
4. Overdrive at half way
5. Overdrive cranked
6. Stormy Monday - Overdrive at 2

Seems I can't resist wiggling that Bigsby at the end of almost every clip

Thanks for all your comments.   I'm lovin this amp. First band practice/jam tomorrow night with completed amp. I was playing it with the chassis upside down on an old Acoustic 6-10" cabinet for a couple of weeks before the cabs arrived. The celestion sure is an improvement.

I sure like that snakeskin, that's attitude for ya.

I guess you're referring to the big brown ones on the main board. I looked at your build pics, they're certainly different, much larger for sure. According to the layout they should be .1uf, maybe a higher voltage rating.
There seem to be polarization marks on them, but they're not electrolytics. I recall a few weeks back I was reading a thread on I think, the ampgarage site concerning an amp builder who was  testing some of his allegedly non-polarized caps, finding a consistent difference in performance depending on polarity. Maybe Nik has picked up on this and started doing the same.

It came up OK right from the start, I was thinking of plugging it in using a long extension cord from the next room, with a fire extinguisher handy

I put a couple of  pics of it mounted in its tweed cab in the "Pics of completed Overtones"  Thread
Not sure any more pics of internals are required but,

My recent OTS 50 build

 Cabinets are real lacquered tweed with vintage style leather handles - done by thecabguy.com, highly recommended!
Mercury transformers, TAD 6L6GC-STR Power tubes, V1 - Tung Sol, V2 & V3 are JJ's. Celestion Gold speaker.
 I'm using a Strymon BlueSky reverb in unbuffered FX loop, no problem. That's all I use for FX.
All together an awesome Rock/Blues/Jazz-Rock Machine.

Seems to me that there's a misconception that the FX loop as it is, is not usable without one of the buffering units.
I think this is only if you want to put pedals in there, because they're mostly designed to work with guitar level signals. In my experience a line level/rack mount device -  reverb, delay type FX work just fine in the FX loop without degrading the tone/sound quality.
All I need is a reverb, the OTS overdrive can't be beat IMO by any FX pedal.

Unfortunately there's not an Irony emoticon, but this one comes close 

I can't imagine why anyone would specifically go for one of the Overtone models and not use the overdrive.....Real tube overdrive or solid state pedal overdrive, the choice seems obvious. This is where the amp is supposed to excel, is it not?

I'm just in the process of putting together my OTS, waiting for Mercury iron to show up. Currently using a modded Fender Hotrod Deluxe, that I'm very pleased with. The Fender also has tube OD and IMO has a real nice smooth singing OD tone with my LPS. I don't use pedals with the Fender, and with the exception of a reverb in the FX loop of the OTS, I plan on continuing my no pedal tradition. I'm curious to find out for myself if there's anything to this Dumble tone thing.

Is anyone using a Strymon Blue Sky Reverb, or any other reverb in the FX loop, without the  C-lator/Klienulator successfully(without it messing up the tone)? The Blue Sky's supposed to accept guitar or line level I/O, so shouldn't screw up the sound, I hope.

cheers
A.

I'm getting a cabinet made for my work-in-progress OTS kit. In order to get a nice snug fit between chassis and cab I think I'm going to drill out the rivets in the sides and countersink the holes for them and the little side board mounting screws, replacing them all with  countersink screws. Otherwise one ends up with a small gap at  either side of the faceplate, when it's mounted in the cab.

I'm assuming everyone else's chassis is like this is well. So for those with OTS's and HRM'S etc in cabinets - your thoughts on this? other ways to deal with this? Maybe a little gap there is hardly noticeable. Not worth making a fuss about.

thanks

Hi, new forum member first post. Just starting my OTS build. I hate to say this, and maybe I'm wrong but looking at the pics in the first post in the thread, I think you've used the wrong wire for the heaters. If you check out the pic here: http://www.ceriatone.com/images/completeAmpsPic/CTOvertone/c11B.jpg and other pics of amp internals, you'll see that heavier gage wire is used for heaters. Understandably they must be required to conduct a fair amount of amperage, because they are after all the tube heaters....

Edit:The insulation on the wire supplied as "heater wire" on the parts list is much thicker, but the actual internal wire itself is just a little larger than that of the supplied black and white wires. So this may not be a big issue...