Ceriatone 18W w/Ef86 review

bluepowder

New member
So I finally got my Ceriatone 18W Marshall clone with a separate Ef86(matchless dc-30) channel...

After a painfully long wait, the DHL guys woke me up early morning(arnd 11) and handed me the Ceriatone 18W TMB w/ Ef86.

After the entire ritual of figuring out how to fix the tubes blah blah...I plugged in my strat slowly raised the volume to 9 o clock...decent clean tone...a lil while later...after messing around with all the control...I turned up the volume and master volume to 3 o clock and WHAM...Rock n roll baby...all out marshall crunch...the amp is loud and raw and mean...esp for an 18W amp...and then I wondered why I ever bothered with solid state technology

Then I switched to the Ef86 channel....the chimey tone Id always been looking for but with a level of articulation that made it so different from the marshall side...not as loud as the marshall channel but oh so sweet....

Considering this is my first honeymoon with a tube amp....Im kinda overly excited but what the heck..you guys remember what its like right?

cons: the marshall channel has flabby bass....but i guess thats more because of the fact that its an 18W.

The tone controls for the TMB channel are more subtle than I would have liked....I still havent found the correct Eq setting for my strat,since im using stock pickups...the tone thins out on the high e string and theres just a tad too much of piercing treble...but on the bass strings theres ample low end...bah the middle 4 will do just fine for now...i need a compressor



I put my tubeslammer in front of the amp...didnt gel all that well wiht the amp all that well...the sound got a lil congested...the skreddy screwdriver however was the perfect match for this amp....and ofcourse the top fuel is a completely different ball game but both are excellent matches for this amp....the sharpness knob on the screwdriver really gives such a range of tones....the screwdriver maintains the basic tone of the amp well...but adds its own flavor in a way that does not take anything away from the amp...now all i need is an amp switcher so that i can switch between the channels of the amp
 
Glad to hear that you've finally biased your amp and got it running. Post some clips man. Wanna hear from cookie crunching. :D
 
Im using G12s....always liked em....acc to me they have very tight bass....

hehe the transition from solid state to tube amp is unbelievable...makes u feel like u dont need pedals...but the price is temporary(hopefully) loss of hearing... :lol:
 
Back
Top