Just managed to source a EVM12L thats been reconed.

Looking forward to picking up the speaker up this weekend!

The Tubes are soon to be purchased.

Thnaks for the advice guys, makes me think how great of a bunch we have on this forum!

I've got my eyes on some tubes which are RCA Long grey/black plate 12ax7 for V1 and SOVTEK 12AX7LPS
 For V3. I might go for the Tung sol for V2.

Stephen, thanks mate and really appreciate it. I might see if I can contact the seller and see if he will ship the speaker for me. If I can possibly bother you to inspect them it would be awesome!

With these tubes and speaker changes, hopefully that will get me in the right ball park on the OD. Keen to get the 59ri back to give it a good tweak

Thanks Gregg, it gives me some solace to know that over time it'll sound better. Oddly enough, all of my axes are low wound. The strat has some lace sensors in them at the moment, but I've managed to source some lollar blondes which I'll get then in next week. Probably won't help my cause with the lollars, but the 59ri and gretch have standard pickups in them which are low wound too.

Are you able to get Chris's tone as he's sound clip out of your BM? It's actually the tone that I'm after!

It might be a little impatient on my behalf, but I am trying to get my hands into a EVM. Might take me a while to get one used, but it just might give me the time got the wgs to break in till I make that decision. I think the tube replacement is in order rather sooner than later though, or I'll just wait till I get the EVM and order them at the same time.

Shame that the time isn't quite there now, has I have a few mates keen on checking the amp out! Hehe

Hey Chris, thats some very tasteful playing there! Just got around to listening it now. In saying that, I'm not able to get anything close to the OD tones you're getting. Out of curiosity, didnthe characteristics of the OD on the amp change much after 25 hours of playtime? Sounds like it was played with some humbuckers.... Which makes me think, I've been playing the BM with my strat mostly because the 59ri needs a good setup and is with my luthier at the moment. Perhaps the BM is better suited with humbuckers?

I've just had about 2 hours with the amp and I'm still struggling to get the OD right. At the moment, it's either too little gain or too it gets too fizzy. Even though the gain is set at about 6 or 7 and 10 o'clock on the back trim, it sounds at its best at those settings where there is a hair of overdrive and anymore seems to get fizzy. It seems I'm having some difficulties in dialing in that syrupy OD i was looking for. My v3 OCD sounds closer to what I'm after at the moment.

Not sure if I just need more time to tweak and wait for the circuit to break in (and speakers) or it is a limitation on the amp. Keen to get Gregg's and Stephen's feedback on this seeing that they have the same amp.

I haven't bothered with the internal HRM trimmers yet. Got too much knobs as it is ( no jokes please! Haha).

Hmm, one of the reasons why I went with a Clator was that I could drive the preamp for the OD but still be able to play at low volumes. Was I wrong in this assumption?

I haven't yet been able to play the amp at volume yet, but now I'm keen to. To be honest, I spend most of my time playing at low volumes, which makes me wonder if I made the wrong choice. YouTube clips are deceiving in the sense that you really can't get a feel for how loud the amps are being run at :/

Will do! Only problem with the EVM is that I'm in the land down under.... Shipping here would be a fortune and EVMs aren't readily available on the second hand market

In terms of the tubes, that shouldn't be an issue as he ships international

Hey thanks Stephen,

Ive been taking that same approach to dial in the OD, but it seems that the bluesmaster sounds best with very little drive on the OD trimmer about 9 and the gain set higher beyond 12 o'clock. Even at those settings, there isn't as such drive as I like, and Anythig beyond gets fizzy.... I'll keep a tweaking though!

Just a little update,

The amp certainly sounds much better after some tweaks but admittedly I haven't had as much time to play it as much as I'd like as of late. Having a newborn and work has been taking up most of my time.

Gregg- like you, I've engaged the bright switch on the Clator which is closer to the drive knob which improve and brightens things up, but I'm finding that i need to wind the treble almost to 10 to get it sounding nice and crisp. The bright pull switch on the volume doesn't appear to do too much to help, and when engaging the secondary bright switch on the Clator next to the out knob, it causes a nasty hissing. The secondary switch does help brighten it up, but the hissing annoys me too much to use it. If I remember correctly, engaging all the switch switches didn't work well with the OD channel.

In terms of the OD, although it isnt quite where i want it to be, I think I'll eventually be able to tune this to my liking, but the next steps will be to change the speaker to a EVM to naturally brighten her up without having to set the treble at max to get those crisp cleans, and possibly replacing the tubes as suggested above to enhance the tones.

I must say, the information that you guys gave me is worth it's weight in gold!

I've tried the suggested settings and the Fizzyness with the OD is almost all gone! Still need to tweak a little further, but it's getting close to where I'd like the OD would be. I found it a little odd, because when playing the amp today, my OD pedals seem to sound better than it did yesterday which prompted me to start tweaking the amp.

In terms of the tubes, i think I'll be looking at the suggested tubes because the JJ's are sure on the darker side, especially with the cleans. Right now, I'd like to change the pickups out of the strat first. One of the bright switches on the clator seems to remedy this, however it throws the OD off when on. Perhaps with further tweaking, I may not need to change the tubes.

My impression of the amp thus far, is that it is an amazingly complex amp with all the controls having a very close relationship with each other. Each control may seem subtle in the way it affects the tone, however a slight tweak on one, will open up a new range of tone when tweaking another control. Less is more on this amp.

Like many of you have suggested, it is going to be long journey ahead of me.... But a fun one at that

Thank you all again for taking the time to provide advice and suggestions on getting me started. Great to be apart of a forum where everyone is super helpful!

Ok, after some burn in time (just leaving the amp on or about 24 hours), the cleans are definitely nicer now, but the overdrive from the amp and my overdrive pedals sounds less than good. Very fizzy and artificial sounding overdrive, which leads me to think that the new WGS ET-65 speakers needs some time to break in.

Just confirming if anyone else has had this experience before? This is actually the first time I've had new speakers before

I ended up going with the WGS ET65, but I'm thinking maybe the EVM12L would be better choice. The bass on the amp is certainly on the heavy side.

I'm sure as time goes by, I'm sure the OD will be less fizzy. The cleans are good now,but I think they'll get even better once things settle down a little.

Will give the les Paul a go a little today!

Ok guys, just posting up date on this

Received the cab and amp yesterday and I must say, the customer service and communication I've had from Nik, Lin and Sang has been amazing throughout this ordeal.

Amp looks great and all mods were done as per my specs. The amp itself isn't too difficult to dial in the cleans, but the OD is tricky at the moment. Hard to juggle volume and OD levels at present.

Right now, the OD sounds quite underwhelming, but I'm burning it in for the next day or so and hopefully the OD will be a little more crisp and dumble like. The cleans are quite darker than expected, because reading reviews and watching clips gave me the impression it would be on the brighter side, but this is easily remedied with the bright switches on either the amp or clator.

Ive only managed to play the amp through my strat ultra and yet to tried it with the gibson lp 59 yet, but I think it needs time for the amp to burn in, and also time breaking in the speakers.....

Just my initial impressions on the amp thus far.... I can tell you there is going to be a lot of time spent of tweaking her

Oh man! And I've just ordered my 50w HRM bluesmaster.......

That amp certainly sounds delicious...

Ah bugger! This has indeed causes me more anxiety!

I suppose I could try change my order with Nik, however I've decided that the BM will do me more than fine with my search for tone.

Like very one else has stated, I need to search for my own tone and I think the BM will provide me that sonic palet to get there. If I keep changing my mind, I'll forever be changing equipment. Although I was looking at the JM tone, I like still am gravitating towards the BM because of it's cleans and wide selection of OD range with the mods. As they say, you can add the dirt, but you cant take it away!

In all honesty though, thank you to all for your input in getting me to decide.