A new Ceriatone amp in the works - Snorkel prototype demo

[FourT6and2]

What's the overall consensus on the Ceriatone's?

Been contemplating a molecular or chupa to build. This might be a better candidate for a different flavor.

If you build yourself, you're in charge of quality control. As a kit, there's really nothing to it. It's a chassis, an empty turret board, and a collection of resistors, capacitors, pots, jacks, wire, etc. The Molecular and Chupa and Yeti and Gargoyle are all the same circuit. Just voiced a differently here or there. So you can buy any one of them and turn it into any of the others pretty easily. If it were me, I'd buy the one with the highest voltage PT (or source transformers yourself) and the most holes already drilled in the chassis (Chupa or Yeti) to make it easier to mod down the road. So yeah... I'd buy a Yeti kit and then you can always change it into a Molecular or Gargoyle or whatever.

 

[reignman454]

Yeah, they're built well. I think there's greater value in buying as a kit and building yourself, though. At least then you learn what's what.

The Chupa is a copy of a user-drawn schematic (with mistakes) of a blueprinted one-off Fortin/Gower Cali, which is in turn a copy of a Cameron Jose mod.

How bad were the mistakes happy accident or needs revision

 

[Zado]

Never been impressed with official Ceriatone clips, but always been pleased with their amps IRL

 

[FourT6and2]

How bad were the mistakes happy accident or needs revision

The amps sound ok for what they are. They can sound great if you know what to address. Might as well build 'em for yourself at that point. Then you can get the right iron and correct mistakes without having to disassemble half the amp after the fact.

 

[fusedbrain]

Yeah, the best way to roll with Ceriatone is buy the kit without the transformers. Cuts the shipping way down as well.
Great transformers can be sourced in North America at reasonable prices, and you can pick what you want.
Buying the kit with the best chassis layout and tube sockets etc is great advice.
I never crunched the numbers on getting the headshell from them because I had a local guy who made killer head cabs for cheap.
It may or may not be cost effective to include the headshell vs sourcing one over here, depending on what you want. I don't suspect the additional shipping for the headshell would be a problem .

 

[FourT6and2]

Yeah, the best way to roll with Ceriatone is buy the kit without the transformers. Cuts the shipping way down as well.
Great transformers can be sourced in North America at reasonable prices, and you can pick what you want.
Buying the kit with the best chassis layout and tube sockets etc is great advice.
I never crunched the numbers on getting the headshell from them because I had a local guy who made killer head cabs for cheap.
It may or may not be cost effective to include the headshell vs sourcing one over here, depending on what you want. I don't suspect the additional shipping for the headshell would be a problem .

Yeah, they just stuff everything inside the chassis and then inside the headshell. Shipping probably wouldn't be all that different either way. Ceriatone's headshells are pretty nice.