Bad Cat Hot Cat 100 Head

This is an update to my prior post under "fuegostring" so I will only comment on the part that has changed. See customer support belowl...

OK my last attempt with BC Support must have come at a bad time (they had an out of town trade show) because I decided to try again and they were unbelievle. Both James and his Tech Tracy personally got on the phone and walked my through a problem I was having that turned out to be compatibility with a delay pedal and the BC effects loop. I was using a TC Nova Delay that caused the tone to go nasally when switched off. I plugged in a Boss DD-5 and it worked great in both positions! Thanks guys...

Mine is a 100R which I bought used. It's my 3rd Hot Cat 100 watt head and I've owned other bad cat products. It has plenty of tone adjustment capability and including a 3-way tone switch that adjusts the overall tone quality to bass/mid/treble. The controls are interactive and a little hard to figure out at first but if you stick with it, it's all there. You have a 50/100w switch on back but the best sound is in the 100w setting.

The best. Class A, ton's of headroom and tone you can eat. It's not creamy smooth, more in your face ala marshall but better, much better in my opinion. This amp has allot of gain! Back off the gain and add in some master and get a great brown sound. Did I say it's loud? It's VERY loud and you can back off the master but you won't get the sweet tone unless you put the power tubes and that means loud. You can get any sound with this amp. The clean channel is great as well. Reverb is only present on the clean.

Heres my gripe...The effects loop was added as an afterthought. Mark Sampson the amps designer would never have added it. My prior 100 was a non-effects loop model with no reverb. My tech know Mark and called him about installing an effects loop and he was told, "Don't". So we added a line out and I ran a wet/dry setup intead which sounded great. I thought that effects loop would solve my problems and instead it ruined my tone. I don't use it because it makes everything sound nasally like 2/3 the way up on a wah...uugh!Anyway, that aside, this is the best sounding amp I've ever played. I give it a 9 due to the effects loop.

Many problems, not sure what was caused by the prior owner so I won't rate here. See below...

Terrible. They/James flat out lied to me...Said stuff was mailed and it wasn't, when I called to follow up, he blew me off, finally more promises, none were kept. They wouldn't help my tech either for the most part. I am a long time bad cat fan but my last experience taught me that the soul of this company left with Mark Sampson and James left me totally stranded. Would I buy another? Would you date a hot supermodel knowing she was going to ruin your life? I rate this catagory a 5 which is a blend of past (9) and the most recent experiences (2).

Date her. Been playing 30 years. Rock, blues, Jazz.

This amp has everything you need and nothin' that you don't. It comes with tubes and switches and knobs and all the amp stuff you need to make it work. Except a cord, didn't come with a cord. Came with a power cord, but not a cord to plug your guitar in with or one to plug in the amp to the speaker cab, which you need because the amp didn't come with a speaker. Actually, now that I think about it, that is pretty lame. This thing cost like $3000 and they didn't include a speaker. I ended up just hooking it to my home stereo for awhile, but that eventually blew up (cheap "durabrand" crap). I called the dealer I got it from and he told me that "hey man, you need a bad cat speaker cab to go with that!". I'm like, "duh! you could have told me that when I bought the stupid thing!" Sheesh, this stuff is expensive! I don't blame the company, just the dealer. Well, enough ranting, I guess I figured things out in the end. Simple, straightfoward, great! It's so easy my cousin eddie could figure it out and he's dumber than bag of hammers. I give it a 7 cause that's a lucky number for features.

WAH-WOO!! Does this thing scream! Man, I think I figured out why they call it the hot cat!!! It sounds like a freakin' female tiger in heat!! I guess hot cat sounds better then "Screeching Female Ready-to-mate Cat". This is the sound I have been looking for my entire life. I should no, my neighbors have about 30 cats and they all seem to start getting the "urge" at the same time. Dang, keeps ya up all night! THis amp is sorta my revenge on my neighbor. His cats start gettin' frisky and I just go plug this baby in and rip out a 37 minute rendition of "Cat-Scratch Fever" in my garage at 3 am and he gets the message! Cops didn't think it was funny, but at least I got them to get animal contraol over here and eliminate about 20-25 kitty-factories. I sleep better now. Anyway, I play lead guitar in a band named "Mating Catz Suck", which makes it ironic that this amp is called a "Bad Cat". Our music consists of a blend of old school blues, funk, hard rock, country, space opera, and black metal, and techno that we like to call "Grizzled-Core". Mostly the lyrics revolve around us complaining. This amp is perfect for our style. It gives me a great clean sound for those R&B grooves and funk and that burning tube overdrive that justs screams with feline smashing authority. ANd this thing is LOUD! I have been thinking that if my neighbors cats start bothering me again, I'm just gonna summarily execute one of them at random by taping it to the grill cloth of this amp and letting the screech of 100 all tube watts disenitgrate the little furball.

As far as the sounds of this amp, it can sing or it can DESTROY!! The opening Drop-D riff of our slammin' song "There's A Cat in the Road--Accelerate!" just slams through this thing! It is tight and articulate and has none of that harsh cat-claw-scratching-against-the-fender-of-your-brand-new-truck sound. That sound drives me nuts and brings back some bad memories. All I can say is this amp gives me no reason to get the 12 gauge out! I love this amp! The best part is, this is a cat that doesn't need spayed or nuetered (or ran over)!

This thing is a tank! My side project band "Uncle Lucky and the Garden Hose" was jamming in the garage and we had the door open when what else do I find but one of the neighbors cats had gotten in the garage. In a fit of rage (hey, the thing peed on my weedeater), I grabbed a 2x4 and started swinging. Stinkin' lil' furball was fast. He jumped up on top of my amp and before I realized what I was doing, I swung and missed bringing the full force of my 2x4 of justice down on top of my amp. Didn't even blink! It just kept on goin'. Tough amp. Let's just say it was tougher then the cat!

They were great. Very helpful. I told them about the 2x4 incident and they ask me something about paint chips when I was a kid, but they were probably just joking or something. Good people.

I would definately buy it again. It sounds great, can take a blow, and is louder than the neighbors cats, even during mating season. The name says bad cat, but as far as I am concerned, its the only good cat I have ever seen. I would've said run into, but I've ran into a lot of cats in my days. If big brutal, feline de-furring tone is your thing, this is your amp. If you want something that purrs, go buy a frickin' siamese and leave the big amps to me!

I bought this amp for the tone. Features are limited when compared to some amps and for good reason. Nothing should interfere with the tone. I put all my effects in front of the preamp and it works fine with a little tweaking. I use an ABY box for channel switching. A couple notable features are that it as 2 120V outlets on back and a 1/2 power switch. This amp is LOUD so the 1/2 power is needed in most playing situations.

I play a PRS CE22, American Strat and Tele. Been playing for 30 years. Currently in an original band with Alternative to classic rock influences. I find both channels awesome. The clean is pristine, chimey and bell-like. I couldn't imagine a better clean sound. It can be pushed to give a nice grind or leave the gain down for a very clean sound. The gain channel is amazing. It will give you classic rock, brown, and alternative sounds. It's not an over the top gain amp. If you are looking for a nu-metal sound this isn't your amp. If you want a Ferrari of marshallish sound, this is your amp. The EQ take a little getting used to. You have Edge which shapes the distortion, gain which controls the iput level, Level which gives you more grind and will turn off the sound when reduced to 0, bass which not only add bass but it will add or take away treble, and the treble which acts the same as the bass. There is also brilliance knob which is similar to presence. The thing about this amp is the controls are VERY sensitiveI've owned several Mesa's, Roccaforte, Hughes and Kettner etc and this is by far the best amp.

I've owned the amp for only 2 weeks. Several rehearsals. It's built like a tank. I don't expect any problems and I will give with it without a backup.

I've had a bad cat before and they are great with customer service.

Been playing for 30 years. Play rock, blues, jazz. The only thing that the amp could use in my opinion is a little more bottom. Very minor issue. I would definite replace it if stolen or lost.

Same features as the 30 and 15 watt versions, except solid state rectified. I also have the 30 watt 1x12 which I love. I actually requested Bad Cat make this because 30 watts just isn't loud enough for my band. Features are kinda minimal here, but the most important feature is tone. It does suck there clean channel is extremely limited in that you can't really tweak more than the volume and the highs via the shared Brilliance knob.

This is the single best gain tone I?ve found. I?ve owned three Bogners, Diezel Herbert, VHT Ultralead, many Riveras, Mesa Dual Recto, etc? this slays them all. Sounds HUGE and juicy. Everyone who plays it loves it.

The cleans tend to be very bright. Very Vox-like. Which for me, is too bright. I like a darker, meatier clean sound. For some reason the 30 has a darker clean. Good news is you can get an EQ pedal or something like a Fulltone Fat Boost and fatten it up. If you?re using an AB box, just put it right after the A and leave it on. If the cleans were more to my liking I?d give it a 10.

The first time I went to try to use it in band practice one of the power tubes went. Bad Cat sent me new tubes. After that it never sounded right. I ended up sending it in to be looked at. When it came back, it came back rocking. I guess it had a bad resistor and Treble pot.

Despite that problem, these things are built more solid than any other amps. The tubes are all shock mounted and is wired pretty clean.

James at Bad Cat has always been really good to me. Whenever I had a question he?s more than eager to hear it. When I asked for a 100 watt Hot Cat they made one.

I've actually become dependant on three channel amps. It sucks because no amp comes close to this one. If it had three channels and a clean channel you can tweak that does effect the gain channel it?d be the perfect amp.