Tone is awesome, but the playing was just superb!  Well done!

D7

I gigged with mine this weekend.  It availed itself wonderfully.  It was an outdoor gig so I got to wind it up like the tone gods intended.  Man, what a nice sound!  I did have a brief scare when the pilot light didn't come on when I first flipped on the amp!  Turned out that the lamp bulb wasn't properly latched in the socket and had worked itself loose on the drive over to the club.  Once I put it in right, all was well.

D7

I think I could cover the classic stuff your son is doing (Stones, Zepp, U2), using either of the configs that I described.  The more modern, higher-gain stuff (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), I'd probably turn up the volume more on the EF86 side to get more distortion, and I'd probably still use an overdrive pedal because they tend to tighten the low-end (by filtering it out, actually).

I hope your son loves his new amp!  He owes his Dad one heck of a Father's Day gift!

D7

The DC30 has one of the best clean tones I've experienced.

D7

My A/B box is one that I made myself.  Its actually a loop selector that I can configure as an A/B box.  But wiring-wise, its doing the same thing.

However, any A/B box will pretty much work.  Whirlwind and Morley both make 'em.  DOD has a really inexpensive one that works fine (I've had one for 20 years!).  The Fulltone website used to have a diagram for building one yourself too.  The big thing is to have one that grounds out the output that's not being used.

Yeah, my settings should work well with those guitars, assuming your son is going for a similar tone.  For the strat, you probably want to crank the volume a bit more and reduce the treble (and/or increase the Cut control) because those guitars are usually brighter and lower in output than the humbucker-equipped Gibsons.

What kind of music is your son playing?

D7

I've used two different configs and they both work pretty well.

First, I used an A/B box to select channels.  For top-boost channel, I set the volume to about 11:00, bass to about 11:00, and treble between 10:30 and 2:00 depending on how bright the guitar is.  On the EF86 channel, I set the gain to somewhere between Keith Richards and Malcolm Young level of overdrive, which is about 9:30 to 11:00 depending on the guitar.  The tone switch I set to the 2nd or 3rd click from the left, depending on the guitar, with the idea of dialing in as much low-end as possible without it getting farty, which this channel can do IMO.  I set the Cut to between 12:00 and 2:00 (depending on the guitar again) and defeat the master volume and use a Trainwreck Airbrake which sounds better to my ears.    I use the top-boost channel as a semi-clean.  At that volume it isn't really clean, it has a fair amount of grit.  But if I roll back the volume a little on my guitar it gets clean enough for me.  I often like a little bit of distortion in my "clean" sound because I think it sounds more hip.  Anyway, I use the EF86 as my dirty rhythm sound using the guitar volume to back off to clean it up a little if I need it.  For leads, I'll activate a Fulldrive II with the output at a little above unity gain and the drive at around 10:00 -- just a bit of additional overdrive for some more gain and compression.

The other way that I've use it is just with the top-boost channel.  I'll set it up for a really great clean sound (genuinely clean, that is) -- usually volume around 9:30, bass at 11:00 and treble and Cut controls between 10:00 and 2:00, depending on the guitar.  Once again, I defeat the master, although in this configuration I don't really need the Airbrake.  For dirty rhythm sounds, I'll use a Barber Small Fry.  For leads, I'll use the Fulldrive II, but this time with the drive cranked up a lot more since I'm working with a clean amp tone.

Both ways have worked really well for me.  I like the 2nd configuration because its very versatile, practical.  But I like the 1st configuration because the resulting tones are more touch-responsive and organic sounding IMO.

D7

If you offered a Clubman, I'd have have some difficult decisions to make deciding what to sell in order to buy one.

D7

Right now I'm using a Weber Blue Dog and Silver Bell with this amp.  Works great.  I'm very happy with the pairing.

Re: GAS.  Oh God, I hope not!  I get GAS every year or so, and after a lot of screwing around with other amps I decided to somehow, someway find a way to buy the amp I've wanted since '92 -- a Matchless DC30.  Then I found Ceriatone.  Anyway, I'm hoping this relieves me of GAS for quite a bit longer than usual so I can stop worrying about gear and put any such energies into actually playing! 

D7

Its housed in a 2x12 Reason Amps cabinet.  Before I got the Ceriatone I had spent quite a bit of time playing thru a friend's Matchless DC30.  The Ceriatone sounds absolutely tremendous and compares to the original very, very well.  I bought it with the intention of upgrading to the Westlabs transformers if I thought I needed to, but now that I've played it, I'm not going to bother.  It sounds amazing with the stock transformers.  I'm a happy camper.

Thanks Nik!

D7