Recommendations for #102 kit?

[dan46n2]

There are several amp clones I would like to build from scratch but although I've done alot of basic electronic repair I've never built a complete amp. It looks like Ceriatone has a full kit.. do you guys know of or recommend any other places?

[pompeiisneaks]

From everything I've seen ceriatone's don't give you any real support. The quality is nice, but they're not that great otherwise.

I don't know for sure what's the best kit out there. For a complete kit with cabinet etc, I've liked mojotone. For more chassis only builds, I'd go with hoffman amps hoffmanamps.com where he has chassis' and boards for some of the more common amps, A great one I'd recommend woudl be the tweed deluxe. It comes with a prebuilt board with turrets etc, and the components.

Mojotone makes nice cabinets too.

Not sure if others know of a better place for kits.

~Phil

[dan46n2]

Thanks Phil. I'll check out those places. I did see Amplified Nation offers some cabs with alot of options on coverings like suede but I didn't see they sell a kit. Seems like finding all the parts on making an amp from scratch would take as long as all the soldering lol.

-Dan

[pompeiisneaks]

I totally missed you said #102 kit... sorry... that's not going to help at all...

Amplified nation sells a lot of the stuff but no 'kits'.

~Phil

[daniboy79]

Wow ...what is it with people saying that Ceriatone doesn't give 'support' for their products? I've had several interactions with Nik, some for products I've purchased, and for other inquiries/questions relating to hear advice. He ALWAYS had time to respond with good intentions ... regardless of him making a buck off of me.

...I bought a #102 kit(FM50 ME) from Ceriatone last year, and had loads of questions during the build. Nik was very helpful.

[pompeiisneaks]

Wow ...what is it with people saying that Ceriatone doesn't give 'support' for their products? I've had several interactions with Nik, some for products I've purchased, and for other inquiries/questions relating to hear advice. He ALWAYS had time to respond with good intentions ... regardless of him making a buck off of me.

...I bought a #102 kit(FM50 ME) from Ceriatone last year, and had loads of questions during the build. Nik was very helpful.

I'm relaying the information that comes from dozens of members here being frustrated with constantly supporting ceriatone builds where the users stated they didn't get any help. I've had to try and smooth waters over the few years I've been the site admin when people come here asking for help with a ceriatone build gone wrong, and not asking for support. I helped as best I could and others have as well, but some get their hackles up because most of the ceriatone kits seem to stem from direct copies of work done here, and then get sent back here for free support.

I don't know more detail than that personally as i didn't experience it myself.

~Phil

[T Wilcox]

Nik is upfront about what you get when you purchase a kit! Not sure why ANYONE would be upset for supporting another grown adult who decided to try and build a kit and then taps out because they cant follow a layout or in some cases even know how to solder?. Maybe next time just skip that post and you will be less upset and someone who does enjoy helping others can help them out.

To the OP: As far as I know Ceriatone is the only company offering Dumble 102 kits. My first amp build was actually the OTS FM50 in 2011 from kit and its still one of my favorites although I play with a lot more high gain Marshall stuff now.

I have never received better customer service from any company than I have from Ceriatone btw! Other companies should take note.

[pompeiisneaks]

It's good to hear some positive reviews for them.

Again, I know next to nothing about them, never bought from them, never used them. I have just had to deal with the aftermath of multiple people here getting very angry about ceriatone stuff. Others have also, as you've stated, agreed they're good.

I remember reading elsewhere that ceriatone products were inferior, only to learn later they were high quality components.

It may very well be that Nik learned over time from his mistakes and has now got an outstanding product with excellent service due to past experience and issues.

That would be great for the community.

~Phil

[talbany]

Phil
AFAIK.. Here is the deal with Nik and Ceriatone so everyone knows the history!


When this site started it was very popular within the "Professional" amp building community.(Bludotone,Fuchs,Red Plate, Welagan,Sebago ,Glassworks,Quinn,Brown Note,and many other less known professional builders)who had their own companies got their start here. Some of these cream of the crops had first hand info about the inner workings of the ODS since many have been inside and worked on the real amps and knew the circuits and all the cool mods which parts worked best for a sound you were chasin. Given that Dumble's work was not very well documented at the time no photo's or accurate schematics were available out on the web these builders were willing to come here and share what they knew about HAD's work so collectively we could put the pieces together here and figured out the different circuits and how they worked (That was real fun ) At that time it was not directed so much as tech support although most of these builders would help on a new build from time to time. Most of the info you see in the files section was a collection of all that data, documented in layout form right down to exact parts Dumble used.
Then Ceriatone started pulling the layouts I made from the site and offering kits,and within a few days would offer the same amp?? (Mustang 102/183/ Bluesmaster). Basically the same with the Trainwreck stuff.
This did not go over very well with most members that had their own amp companies and were in direct competition with Ceriatone so naturally they stopped sharing and once the passing of info stopped those builders we're lets say less motivated to come here and while doing so occasionally help out with a build or mod.
After that things just got worse when more and more people were coming here only to get help with their Ceriatone kits. (Who wants to be tech support for someone else's company), so those guy's with all the cool info bailed.

This is the main reason why there has been no new layouts from other Dumble amps now for over a decade.Nobody's sharing new accurate info.Fun while it lasted..
(Personally I think if Nik had been a part of this community and was willing like everyone else to share and contribute at the very least help out with his customers kits things would not have been as bad as they were)

Special thanks to. Gil Ayan,Brandon Montgomery,Scott Lerner, Max, Charlie Wilson, Marco,Shad (Quinn Amps) Gary (Glasswerks) Andy Fuch's for openly sharing that info.

BTW...IMO..The Amp Garage (Dumble Discussion) is a shell of what it used to be with respect to sharing new and unknown info about Dumbles amplifiers. It's basically turned more into a resource for tech support for building Dumble style amps
Tony

[pompeiisneaks]

Thanks Tony,

yeah that's a lot more of the history I was only partially understanding. Thanks for filling in the blanks.

I definitely would be a bit annoyed too if that happened.

~Phil

[norburybrook]

Nik is upfront about what you get when you purchase a kit! Not sure why ANYONE would be upset for supporting another grown adult who decided to try and build a kit and then taps out because they cant follow a layout or in some cases even know how to solder?. Maybe next time just skip that post and you will be less upset and someone who does enjoy helping others can help them out.

To the OP: As far as I know Ceriatone is the only company offering Dumble 102 kits. My first amp build was actually the OTS FM50 in 2011 from kit and its still one of my favorites although I play with a lot more high gain Marshall stuff now.

I have never received better customer service from any company than I have from Ceriatone btw! Other companies should take note.

I agree with you about Nicks' service and quality. I have dealt with him a few times and his products are perfectly packed, perfectly supplied and he has answered any questions I've asked.

I think the main issue here on TAG is: Nick took a lot of hard work from members here in in unravelling the whole Dumble thing and used that for his business. There's nothing wrong in that plenty of others have done the same but I think the difference is some of the other builders were here to share their knowledge and expertise regularly so in doing so they were giving back to the community , I don't think Nick ever did that, for whatever reasons.

However, playing devils advocate, over the years I have seen quite a few builders who have taken layouts/designs from here and once they were selling commercially stopped posting here as much as they did so I'm not sure why Nick has been singled out, possibly because he's the only person that supplies a kit rather than just a finished amp.

I've only been a member for 5 or 6 years so I'm sure there is a lot I don't know that went on before I came here.

M

[ChopSauce]

I agree and would like to add that I often go the Ceriatone website just to see the layouts.

Just maintaining this collection of layouts available to anyone is something valuable for the noob I am.

I am sorry that some major contributors of the forum did not ever received anything back from Ceriatone - most likely - but in some sense he is giving back to the community, for free:

- "Nik" could have made the layouts private/printed/... only readable by his customers but "he" didn't do it!

"Social dumping" and "unfair" competitions with companies from "poorer" countries is another story...

[talbany]

I agree and would like to add that I often go the Ceriatone website just to see the layouts.

Just maintaining this collection of layouts available to anyone is something valuable for the noob I am.

I am sorry that some major contributors of the forum did not ever received anything back from Ceriatone - most likely - but in some sense he is giving back to the community, for free:

- "Nik" could have made the layouts private/printed/... only readable by his customers but "he" didn't do it!

"Social dumping" and "unfair" competitions with companies from "poorer" countries is another story...

We can all speculate? agree or disagree about how a certain person feels or should feel about Nik, Ceriatone and his business practices,some people didn't think it was a big deal and it really bothered others,everyone has their reason, business is business and it is what it is. It was however,IMO a great time to be on the garage and I am just thankful I was around to get to talk to, learn from,in some cases meet and become friends with some of the best amp builders in the business.
The good Ole days.

Tony

"Nik" could have made the layouts private/printed/... only readable by his customers but "he" didn't do it!

This is not entirely true, He does not post his SSS layouts on his site. Those are not "Free"
Irritated yet

http://www.ceriatone.com/overtone-sss-100/

[ChopSauce]

Thanks for the precision! I was not aware of this and this is not something I appreciate, for sure. I'd tend towards thinking that it is not that good if it doesn't show but...
(I am sorry I've been missing the good ol'days of this forum, too... )

[dan46n2]

Looks like I stirred up a hornets nest. I've been emailing Nik back and forth about a #102 kit but now think I want a SSS. Seems like he is the only one offering kits so at least in my case I probably wouldn't have ventured to build an amp from scratch without any prior experience. I'de like to try that in the future. Would have never looked into Dumbles either due to an originals cost so a kit is my only option now. I see where the bad feelings come from though... can see both sides.