Re: Bad Cat Hot Cat - anyone, anyone?
I owned the Hot Cat 30 2x10'' combo for about a half a year.
To start off, the amp is really unique sounding. The overdrive sounds "gritty", there's no other word for it - it really sounds dirty. It has more gain on tap than anyone could ever realistically use. I hated how difficult it was to dial in really usable sounds. In some venues I played at, I simply couldn't EQ to compensate for the room, it'd sound just plain thin and harsh. The newer "R" models also have a midboost available, which mine didn't (and it meant that I had to play around with the bass and treble in order to get some poor approximation of midrange). This amp is a one trick pony. Rolling back the gain is not pretty on an amplifier voiced like this and the character of the distortion is one that you'll either love or hate and you simply can't change it. The notes didn't seem to have much sustain either, but to be honest, in the venues I was playing at at the time, I couldn't open her up all the way.
The clean channel is a rather excellent sound (reminded me of a Matchless), but unfortunately due to the design structure of the amplifier, it's not really usable. The clean channel breaks up very early (way too early to be effective live even at a medium sized venue) and the overdrive channel's volume is several db higher than the clean channel, so you can't balance the channels - it's just not possible.
The reliability is up in the air with these amps. In the 6 months I had my HC30, it never gave me any issues, but I've read several threads where amp failures have occured even on new amp purchases only a few months down the road and from what I've gathered, the customer service is nonexistent.
Thanks to the internet, I ended up buying a Bad Cat Hot Cat before my Bogner Shiva during my amp search because I ended up reading that the Bogner wasn't as good. It goes to show you must always play before you buy because they're two completely different amplifiers and my Bogner is my holy grail amp.
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions from all of this.
