@212 I,ve been keeping my eyes out for Amperex Bugle Boys for a while now, just never seem to have the money when they come up, darn the luck. I am quite pleased and still surprised by how good the JJ's sound in there. I never would have believed it.

I have to update mine a bit. I swapped JJ's into V1 & V2 and moved one of the GE Long Plate 12AX7's in to the PI Spot in my Bluesmaster. Marked improvement in tone, surprisingly enough. It seems the old Long Plates were a little to warm and dark for the Bluesmaster Circuit. I may try some Telefunkin's or GE Short Plates in there at some point to see how they compare, but at this point, I am thoroughly surprised by the JJ's, so much so that I swapped the Weber 1265's back in, and fell in love with them again! I still run either TAD 6L6WGC's or JAN Phillips 6L6WGB's, depending on what kind of mood I'm in...

How's the build coming along??

Thanks, Tone. I may have to try the Gold one day. especially now because,,,,

What a difference a few hours and some tube and speaker swaps can make!!! I'm starting to think I am going nuts! On a hunch a swapped out the ANOS GE Long Plate 12AX7's  I had in V1 & V2, for some JJ's and instantly the amp brightened and tightened up quite a bit, so my curiosity was raised greatly, so i swapped the Weber 1265's back in and holy cow!! that's all i can say!  It seems all the looseness and fartiness i was experiencing were coming from the amp itself! I can definitely say that THIS is what i was looking for all along! It seems those Long Plates were just a bit too warm and dark for the Bluesmaster circuit and may have been the source of some of my woes all along! The clean channel is alot fuller and lush, and all the brightness is there, and the bass is nice and tight as well.

I cranked up the clean channel to around 8 out of 10 to drive the power section and was greeted with a beautiful power tube saturation overdrive sound and the Webers compressed and sang beautifully! All this from the supposedly "crappy" JJ's! I still have a Long Plate in the V3 as i swapped a few in and out of there, and it was the clear winner in that spot. I can't wait to see how the Celestion Gold will sound paired up with the Weber 1265 i'm stoked!

In short, as i said before, i think the Weber 1265 Alnico is a great speaker, but before i couldn't say it was a great match for the Bluesmaster, but now, I can safely say with the proper tube compliment and setup, they are a perfect match!! And they are no longer for sale Sorry!

Does the C-Rex allow the brightness to come through as well? I know that the hemp cones are known for "taming harsh treble" is why I ask. I've pretty much resigned my self to the fact that my LP will be a little muddy until i swap the pups out, but if I throw I GE-7 in front of the amp I can get some nice highs out of it, but I found out last night that even with the eminence drivers I have in there now the bass can get a little farty with the LP, but the highs and mids are there. So will the cannabis retain the mids and highs without being farty in the Bluesmaster?

Edited. Damn autocorrect

+1 on using the c-lator as a global master. You can drive the power section hard and control the volume fairly well with little sacrifice in tone. That's what I do when I practice at home and in small venues.

FWIW Nik had plans for 5 watters no too long ago, and a 10-15 watter would seem like a next logical step

No Apologies Needed I agree it is like a Blackface on steroids. I was playing with a little more last night, and with the old eminence speakers in,there my Dano i can crank the bass right on up with no problem (surprise surprise) but with the Les Paul it can get boomy and overwhelmig real quick (again surprise surprise).

I may switch the power tubes out again to the JAN 6L6WGB's to get a little lower bass response for tonight's little blues jam and see how it goes. I should just shut up and play, but that's been hard for me to do lately

I look forward to hearing your clips

Very nice!! Inspires me to get one!!

Gregg

No prob! Hope it all works out! I'm seriously considering a 5E5A pro and will be in need of 12AY7's soon too let us know how it works out for ya!

Gregg

So, even though it appears alot of guys/gals have flown the coop here since Nik stopped selling kits I thought i would give a little update on my Bluesmaster, specifically on the speaker choice. I originally had Weber AlNiCo 1265's installed, and they are pretty nice speakers, but not a great match for the Bluesmaster. I originally ordered them based on some recommendations from this forum and a few other sources, as they are a popular choice for the OTS series. The problem is that the Bluesmaster's tone stack is very similar to Blackface Fenders, and, as such along with having a nice high end and mid range section it also has a very large bass response. It's not something we think about very much, but Leo did design his amps to go along with his guitars, the strats and teles, and so the amps needed more bass response to make up for the guitars' lower bass output.

The 1265's, as i said were very warm, and had nice high end, and were not overly dark, as i had feared, but they did not take the bass output from the Bluesmaster well at all. Even at low volume and low bass settings the bass response was loose and flabby, and i just couldn't get used to it. At first i tought they just needed to break in some more, so i kept them in and kept gigging with them, but as they opened up, they got warmer and brighter, but the bass response never really developed. I thought maybe this was just how AlNiCo's are (these were my first AlNiCo speakers), but after doing some reading, and emailng weber, it turns out the bass response is more of a result of cone construction than magnet design.

Reluctantly, I pulled the Webers out, and dropped two of my 20 year old Eminience Legend G1's in there. I had 4 in my 4X12 cab that i used to use with my Sovtek and i always thought they were pretty good drivers. To my surprise, the amp really came to life. The bass response on those old speakers is nice and tight and well defined, and the mids and highs are every bit as good if not better than the Webers. The Blackface quality of the speakers REALLY shines through now. I am very impressed. I can even turn my bass control up past 3 now, and it stays nice and tight and well controlled.

I think the closest thing Eminience to them now is the 1258, so i may look into a pair of those to replace my 20 year old ones, as i am afraid they may go at any time, as the cones are pretty dry and flimsy and may blow any time. I'm thinking either those or the Weber 12F150's.

In short, if you have a Bluesmaster, and you are not happy with the low end response, try a more American type speaker, it seems the British style, while awesome in the mid's and high's, just don't stand up to the bass response that the amp is capable of.

Hope this helps!

Gregg

The only new production ones that i know of are ElectroHarmonix ones. I've had good luck with ANOS GE ones both standard and JAN versions from KCA Nos tubes. It seems like the ANOS ones that are burned in a little bit seem to work better, and are fairly reasonable, about the same as new production for the non JAN version.

Hope this helps!

Gregg

I'd say Ceriatone definitely fits in the Boutique Category, just not the pretentious Boutique category. In other words, while the haters look down their noses at Nik's work, most of us Ceriatone users can appreciate and admire all of the boutique builders, if you catch my drift. I think most of the hating does come from here in the USA. I think hatred and ignorance are two of our chief exports, unfortunately.

I look at it this way, if Nik can build an amp using the same quality parts, is willing to do custom work, sell his amps at reasonable prices that working musicians can afford, then more power to him. There are a couple of boutique builders like Nik here in Florida who build reasonably priced quality clones and are awesome to deal with, too, but it seems like they are few and far between here.

Well, you can swap out the rectifier for a solid state one like mike at kcanostubes sells, and it will tighten the amp up substantially, throw a tubescreamer or similar in front of it and it could do some raw rock stuff. If you put a master volume on it, you can really get some crunch out of it as well.

Hope this helps!

Gregg

Holy cow! 500?

+1 on that. I had the chassis out today changing a couple of things and scoping out a place for an onboard c-lator ( I love mine but hate having to carry it) and a place to put a resistor and cap for my planned switchable cathode/fixed bias mod, and nixed both plans. It's tight in there!!