Ceriatone DC30 kit arrived yesterday!!!
When I arrived home from work yesterday, I noticed that DHL had left a note taped to my door. They tried to deliver a package but, since nobody was home to sign for it, they took it with them. Damn, damn, damn. I called the phone number on the ticket and spoke with a helpful woman who told me I could either wait until Monday and they would try to deliver it a second time, or I could drive to Newburgh, NY, to pick it up. I don’t mind the drive to Newburgh—it’s only about 45 miles up the NYS Thruway—but I knew Saturday would be busy with other family activities so I resigned myself to wait until Monday for what I hoped was the new DC30 from Nik at Ceriatone. What a disappointment—three or four days from Malaysia to New York and I would have to wait through the weekend before it would be in my hands. Insert your favorite curse words here.
As I sat down to check my email for the day, I noticed a DHL truck drive past headed for the neighborhood 7-11. Did I follow him? Of course I did! Wouldn’t you??? As luck would have it, it was the same truck and driver that tried to make a delivery to my house six hours earlier. And he still had the package. After taking it home and opening the bubble-wrap packaging, I looked over the amp. Everything is just as I requested.
I ordered it partially assembled; all the components except the transformers, choke, and some of the rear panel-mounted components are mounted and wired in place. I had requested a few ‘custom’ modifications to accommodate the power scaling system that I plan on installing in this amp, so the half/full power switch was omitted, and the speaker polarity switch was relocated next to the impedance selector switch. This freed up an opening in the chassis for the power scaling control knob. All these modifications were setup just as I requested.
Kudos to Nik at Ceriatone. He sent me just what I asked for, at a reasonable price, and quickly. The wiring work in neat and tidy and the solder joints are all very good - just like the pictures on his website. And you can’t beat placing a semi-custom order and having it show up only 11 days later, complete with shipping half-way around the world. Nik really is great to deal with (a marked contrast to some amp builders I’ve contacted that can’t be bothered to even reply to a couple of questions via email) and I would highly recommend him.
Now I’m just waiting for the transformers from West Labs and I can get this thing setup and checked out. If all goes well, I can move on to installing the power scaling system in the near future.