Hellcat opinions

[djl]

Hi all.
Very tempted by cheap cornford hellcat in local guitar shop. Slightly hesitant pulling the trigger because I remember reading about reliability problems etc in other forums. Just wondering what peoples experience here is with them, if anyone has any? I guess the other thing making me think twice is the fact that they seem to have gone from flavour of the month to quite difficult to find...

cheers

[d1dsj]

I had one, awesome amp and I wish I still had it! The reliability problems were if I recall correctly, first off - they were originally made to take Sovtek valves and needed a resistor mod if you were to use other makes. A simple fix that you could yourself if you are ok with a soldering iron. The second problem was something to do with the reverb unit not working properly, and again I believe there was a simple fix. I had no such problems with mine and wish I had sold it along with my original Cornford MK50H to get a Cornford MK50II which did end up having a fault. I still have a Hurricane and an older MK50H and would love to get another Hellcat. How much is it out of curiosity? As far as falling out of favour there are a few reasons. They had a fire that was said to have burnt the factory to the ground and I believe in the process of rebuilding Paul Cornford was very ill and they did not have the staff nor the components to fulfil orders. In more recent times they are receiving bad press for poor customer support which is being addressed but it's going to take time. If you don't get the amp please send me a pm with it's whereabouts as I may well be interested myself!   

[djl]

Its 1200 quid for a basically new combo (been in the shop for sometime, trying to shift it). I will let you know if I don't get it, if you're still interested

[Tellboy]

Had my Hellcat Combo for about 4 years (also paid £1200). Never had any problems with it. Early heads had a problem with certain valve makes but these had been sorted by the time the combos were produced. Great clean (vintage) channel, oodles of gain on the modern channel. Can sound a little bright/sharp if you don't compensate with tone controls and being EL84 based perhaps has not quite got the bottom end of larger EL34 etc amps but produces a wonderful singing sustain. Very responsive to guitar volume control and all my guitars sound different through it.

[sjwebb90]

I have an early Hellcat head, which runs ECC83 Mullard yellow labels, JJ EL84 with dropper resistor change. Resistor changed from original 680ohms with Sovteks to 4.7Kohms for the JJ's Valves. The resistor in question is the one across the Standby Switch. Mine also has the reverb mod done.

I have been using it full time since 2002 for practice and gigs and bar having to replace the EL84's every couple of years or so, completely reliable and a great work horse.