My strat sounds fabulous in the clean channel of my BM 50w - it's the best clean sound I've ever had. The OD channel is also amazing, but to really get the best singing tone I have to crank the mid boost knob of my emg DG120 pickup set - the straight setting is a bit thin and the attacks can get a bit "plinky".

Sorry, I skipped the experimenting part - went for the mercury mags from the start. Nik sold me a set direct for a price I couldn't refuse. They sound fabulous, btw, but I have no idea how much better (or how similar) they sound to the stock metal.

It's freely available on the ceriatone website.

While I was building my BM 50w there was a very detailed thread on tube selection. A lot of detail was thrown around about the relative merits of various esoteric and hard to find tubes in the various spots in these amps. But when it came time to buy some tubes for my amp, I just went down to the closest music store (which happens to be a really great one) and bought some brand new tungsol 12ax7's and a matched pair of JJ 6L6GCs. And they sound fantastic! While I'm pretty sure if I started messing with a good sized collection of older tubes I'd probably find stuff i liked better, for the moment I'm happy.

And I may get some impetus to experiment soon - I have a mesa boogie mark iv on the way here, and I gather it may need new tubes. May be time for some mixing up!

At least he says "temporarily". Maybe they'll be back.

Me, trying to decide if I want to spring for a kit in the next 2 weeks...

Well of course. Once you actually play one of these things the jig's up.

Beautiful build! Great work! Makes me want to build another one...

If you're getting 170 mv you're basically destroying those tubes. You'll need to check the wiring around the power tubes and/or the transformer extra carefully, find what you've done wrong and fix it. Then most likely replace the power tubes. It probably needs to go to a tech for this.

Oh my yes. I've watched that one dozens of times. And yes, I wish Nik could offer it. I believe it's an unobtanium though, as I think there's only one of them, and no hint of what's inside.

I think it depends on what you're planning on doing with it. 100 watts is probably a better choice for gigging and will probably resell better. For at home playing 50 watts will serve you adequately. My 50 watt bluesmaster is blisteringly loud at even low settings in my small studio.

I'm using an old 4x10 amp as the speaker for my bluesmaster 50w at the moment. It sounds fine, although a bit dull - probably some generic speakers in it - they're labeled built for Tubeworks, so I don't know what they are originally. I'm kind of looking around for a 2x12 speaker now though.

I've never heard of this before. Is there really huge potential sales for this, or are you just being enthusiastic?

My Bluesmaster 50w was the first amp I've built. See my build thread - http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=1952.0. I've built tons of electronic projects before this, mainly synthesizer modules, so lots of the project was the usual stuff, but there was also lots of learning along the way.

And my amp worked perfectly on first power up, and has continued doing so!

Excellent work! And a great job building it - I'm glad you thanked me for the pics, but you definitely did a better job than I did!

That is gorgeous!

Ok, I'll play. I have noticed that my knobs tend to end up being be set the same way most of the time, even though I'm still messing with them a lot while playing. Totally stock (although homemade) Bluesmaster 50w, Tungsol 12AX7's, JJ 6L6GC's. No x-lators or effects most of the time.
OD trim on 11-12 oclock
Bright off
Deep off
Mid Boost off
Rock
Preamp Volume 7
Treble 8
Middle 5
Bass 3
Drive 6-10 depending
OD Level 2-5 depending
Master 2-5
Presence 8

Internal TMB trimmers - Bass barely on, Middle around 10 oclock, Treble 12 oclock.