my BM50 was factory built and does this too:

Deep: On is down
Mid: On is Up

hmm a bit annoying. I can see this cannot be fixed without professional quality soldering, beyond my skill level

is this based on a Ceriatone kit?
T

I've tried PS, Triode mode, VVR, PPMIV, Yellow jackets, THD hotplates and an ISO box for the speaker and mic

For recording quietly, The ISO box wins
For practice, PPMIV is effective to knock it down a little, and so is the THD at -4dB, at least as good as VVR+PPMIV
Any of these lose way too much tone if you drop the volume to conversation levels
Fitted after manufacture, VVR costs the same as a used THD hotplate, and is useless without PPMIV fitted. You cannot remove it, so cannot get the cash back if you decide it's no use for you

I have tried yellowjackets in my Twin, they made it sound like an "OK" EL84 amp, whereas my Cornell 18/20 sounds excellent (it has VVR too - still loses tone).

I think a JTM45 is a poor choice for quiet playing, and a THD hotplate + PPMIV is the best solution. You do need to first just play it though, like stratsrus says

Easiest solution is to buy a quieter amp that sounds OK quiet. There are some nice 5w amps out there. For cheap quieter practice, a Blackheart BH5 is convenient. I had one customised with an added 6L6 and tube rectifier, I can mix the El84 and 6L6 - there are other amps like this. the 18w model may be quiet enough for you, or try to find an inefficient speaker, or even those new variable-efficiency drivers

Cheers
Tone

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

I've been following the advice from this page: http://thetubestore.com/gainfactor.html
Please tell me if there is any mistakes there

A 5751 might sound better then?

hmm
I tried both with many settings,
the sound is very different on both with the at7

Cheers
Tone

I like the 12ay7 in v1, using a 12ax7 would be unrewarding I suspect
But even so it's often mushy and there is little touch sensitivity.

I tried adding a 12at7 in v2
This improved things a lot I think, I can get a lot of different tones, with a little more definition.
The desirable sag is still there, and whacked up full there are better tones available (to my ears)
Note: I like the strat neck pickup the best, and this is improved a lot too with this extra change, although the bottom E string is still a bit louder than the other 5

Cheers
Tone

I like the 12ay7 in v1, using a 12ax7 would be unrewarding I suspect
But even so it's often mushy and there is little touch sensitivity.

I tried also adding a 12at7 in v2
This improved things a lot I think, I can get a lot of different tones, with a little more definition. Sag is still there, and whacked up full there are better tones there
I like the strat neck pickup the best, and this is improved a lot too with this extra change

Cheers
Tone

The triode switch is not as bad as those on some amps, it does affect the tone, but not as much as using loads of FX
An attenuator will also suck some tone, but the THD ones are acceptable at -4dB (stills some tone lost), which is usually enough to make a noticeable difference

Have you seen the variable-efficency speakers?
Eminence do one now: http://www.eminence.com/fdm.asp

I use my 50w in a home studio, it's not too loud I think unless you run the master vol past 3 o clock, and keep the clean channel clean. I think the master vol and OD trim could tame it for a function room really, unless you use big OD from your FX

Yellowjackets change your 6L6 amp to a class A EL84 amp, not really advisable if you want to keep the same tone. ToneBone adapter is the same idea
6V6 will sound less crisp I think, and less bass snap.

a portable ISO cab would make it quiet, but then you would go through the PA, not ideal if you're a tone purist, although tbh if it's multi-style function music with multi FX, maybe that could work better once you work out how to get the right result.
only the bigger ISo cabs with 12 inch speakers sound complete.

cheers
Tone

thankyou!

Excellent thanks!!
That would be a linear pot I assume?

cheers
Tone

Spend a few days getting the clean tone right with your main guitar.
Then tweak the OD / HRM so that it works well without changing the clean settings

For me this means OD knobs about vertical and OD trim halfway, and HRM trim dialling treble down to 1/10
Then the OD switch is not a night/day contrast, but just pushes the amp into a nice drive
PAB is too big a jump though I think

Since then
My problem with the BM is that it's too dark with bright off and too bright with it on (with no OD).
I usually set presence to 2/10 on all my amps.
Solution for me is dial bass down a little, and set presence to 7/10, probably need to set the HRM treble trimmer lower still

have a look at the new BM manual Nik has provided.
I think the Bass one is the one you can get a screwdriver into, the other 2 have dimer attachments. mid is in the middle

From new, the OD was fine on mine, I rolled off the treble a little. but not all the way, and I dial the treble down on all my amps, so definitely not a fizzy amp.

the PAB is a little too much for my way of playing
can it be trimmed back? I saw no trimmer for this

I have another amp with PAB added, and the footswitch has a pot on it to set the PAB gain level

thanks
T

PPIMV and VVR
I switched the PI valve for an ECC82.
Now around 9-11 oclock there is a setting where a strat neck pickup sounds amazing then once past 12 oclock, you need the bridge humbucker for that ultra high gain sound