My HRM Bluesmaster arrived late last week, and I am very sorry I spent the kind of money I did. It sounds awful, and nothing on the Ceriatone website or Nik's advice has helped. The amp has no balls, the OD section does not work, and the volume is at clock radio level. I am using SED 6l6's and EH 12ax7's through a Celestion Century speaker.

Nik has told me I need to bias the tubes,  and I cannot figure out the explanation in the manual. It  is beyond my skills and will not help these issues anyway. I am a guitar player and not a scientist and I have never been more disappointed in a piece of equipment, after reading all the glowing comments. Nik told me to "take it to a tech", which is not what I exepected after spending well over $1000 on this amp. There really ought to be more information on what is required to use one of these before anyone wastes their money again.

Sorry, but I've been playing for three decades and this is the worst.

Then why did you not let Nik set it up with tubes he supplies? Have you tried swapping v2 around? Have you balanced the PI? What about the OD trimmer?

You sort of imply that Nik has left you high and dry, but I'd put it to you that Nik suggested you take it to a tech to have it biased and checked over, not to sort out any possible problem with the amp. Nik is a good guy, give him a chance, but he is right, take it to a tech. If you really want to use your own tubes then you should take responsibility for that decision.

Are you sure you have the controls on the back set OK? OD trim halfway or more, footswitch, etc
The D-style OD does not work anything like OD on any other amp I have played in 30 years, are you sure you are aware it is not the same?
I set both OD knobs at 5, master vol at 7, vol at 3.5, and set OD trim to match. It sounds excellent

When my HRM BM50 arrived the other week, it worked fine, but I thought it was not as nice as my Fuchs ODS30
After realising it is much darker, I quit trying it with my Fuchs 2x12, and tried it with my Fender Twin 2x12 cab, tweaked the HRM to smooth the treble, and dialled in more treble in the preamp, less bass (same settings as on my Twin really) and lots of presence (much more than on the twin). Now it sounds in the same range of quality as the Fuchs, but each has pros and cons.
The Fuchs has more switching (I like mid boost on the footswitch), but is PCB-based, The BM50 has better control over the OD sounds, and a separate master vol for the OD is very handy

If you mail order an amp across the world, and fit tubes yourself then :
(A) they need biasing, if you can't do it (I found it easy with a DVM), you need a tech, this is common to all amps that don't use cathode bias. Nik cannot do this for you
(B) if it doesn't work, you need a tech. Nik can't tell you how to resolve tech issues by email, and clearly return to base is not practical

Are you a genuine customer? It's just you sound atypical of Ceriatone users, who know quite a lot of this stuff, and hence buy from Asia rather than getting a USA or UK branded (often Chinese-made anyway) PCB box from the local shop.

If you are for real, I am certain you will get this sorted in less than one hour of a tech's time.
I bought my tubes with the amp, hence no need to worry

Cheers
Tone

Well I played a lot of Ceriatone amps and I can say one thing BM has some serious balls.

and just one more thing...
...let say you buy Marshall amp, you pull out the tubes, put your own in and fry the amp.... then take it to a Marshall service and guess what they will tell you, when you ask if this is covered by your warranty.