Talking 'Shop

Remixed and refreshed by the late, great amp-guru Mark Sampson, this Black Cat has two more valves, 10 more watts and a whole new voice

-  Martin Smith

Hard to believe, perhaps, but Bad Cat has already enjoyed a quarter of a century as one of the world's foremost boutique guitar amp companies. Its much-loved product line, comprising a lower-priced Player Series II and the premium Hand Wired series, is now augmented by both Lunchbox range and the Mod Shop series we're looking at here - Bad Cat's creative creche where designers and players tweak existing Bad Cat circuits into inspiring variations for small production runs.

To celebrate the opening of the Mod Shop comes the Black Cat 30 Mod Shop Edition fresh from the Costa Mesa, California, HQ. Before his death earlier this year, amp-design legend Mark Sampson, who's long been associated with the Bad Cat brand, took a Black Cat 20 from the Player Series II range of more affordable, hand-crafted (but not hand-wired) amps and Sampson-ised it. This is the result.

Construction-wise, we have a hand-built, two-channel amp housed in a solid birch ply cabinet, covered in high-quality Tolex with the traditionally illuminated Bad Cat faceplate logo. Departing from the original 20-watt, two-EL84 layout, the modified version now has four EL84s that provide 30 watts of all-valve power through its custom 60-watt 12-inch Celestion Vintage 30 speaker.

A quick word on the modified nature of the Celestion speaker. During his Matchless years, Mark Sampson discovered that the sound of the Celestion Vintage 30 could be moulded more to his tastes by manually removing the doping substance that is often applied to dampen excessive high-frequency overtones. While this messy business originally brought disapproval from Celestion, the sales of the amps over time proved to be substantial enough to cause a rethink, and now Celestion custom-builds 'undoped' drivers specifically for Bad Cat.