This Black Cat 30R is in excellent condition overall. The cream tolex shows minor aging — the kind of subtle mellowing you'd expect from a well-kept amp that's seen some years without taking any real abuse. There are a couple of small scuffs, but no tears, no peeling, and no structural damage to the covering. The white front panel accent and brown grille cloth are both clean and intact. All hardware — corners, handle, chassis bolts — is solid and shows no issues.
Every control, switch, and jack on both the front and rear panels is clean and functions as it should. Both channels, the reverb, the effects loop, standby and half-power switching, speaker phase, and impedance selection all tested good. The amp is fully functional and original — no modifications, no replacement components.
The two custom Bad Cat Celestion speakers are original and in excellent condition.
Included with the amp is a fitted road case on heavy-duty casters. The case shows normal road wear — some scuffs and marks on the exterior — but is fully functional with solid latches, corners, and a working lid handle.
No footswitch included.
*OVERSIZE/OVERWEIGHT ITEM - Additional shipping charges may apply
Weight: 83 lbs (amp) / 47 lbs (road case)
The Black Cat 30R is Bad Cat's take on the classic British Class A circuit — rooted in the same lineage as the Matchless C30, refined with higher-quality components, overspec transformers, and the kind of attention to signal path that handwired boutique building is supposed to deliver. It was designed in Corona, California and built by hand, and this 2x12 configuration is the version that really lets the amp breathe.
Channel 1 runs a 12AX7 preamp through a treble, bass, and cut tone stack — chimey, three-dimensional cleans that push into sweet breakup when you lean on them. Channel 2 switches to an EF86 preamp for a more aggressive, harmonically complex voice with thicker low mids and more grunt. The EF86 channel can toggle between a traditional bass and treble tone stack or a five-way tone selector that bypasses the stack entirely, replacing it with five different tone cap voicings for players who want to go direct. Both channels are footswitchable, and independent volume controls let you set each channel's gain structure separately.
The global cut control dials back upper treble frequencies to taste — useful for taming bright guitars or bright rooms — and the master volume handles overall output. A true half-power switch drops the amp from 30 watts down to 15 by pulling two of the four EL84s out of the circuit, making this a genuinely usable amp at lower volumes without losing the feel and harmonic response of the full power section. Tube reverb rounds out the feature set, driven by its own pair of 12AX7s.
Four EL84 power tubes running cathode-biased in Class A, a GZ34 tube rectifier, and a pair of custom Celestion 12" speakers built specifically for Bad Cat — this is a serious amplifier built for players who care about what's under the hood.
Specs:
Type: Handwired all-tube 2x12 combo
Power: 30 watts Class A (15 watts in half-power mode)
Power Tubes: 4x EL84 (cathode biased)
Preamp Channel 1: 12AX7
Preamp Channel 2: EF86
Reverb Tubes: 2x 12AX7
Rectifier: GZ34 (tube)
Channels: 2 (footswitchable)
Channel 1 Controls: Volume, Bass, Treble
Channel 2 Controls: Volume, Tone (5-way selector/tone stack toggle), Bass, Treble
Global Controls: Reverb, Cut, Master Volume
Effects Loop: Passive (In/Out switch)
Speakers: 2x 12" Custom Bad Cat by Celestion, England
Cabinet: Baltic Birch plywood
Rear Panel: Voltage selector (100V/120V/240V), Standby switch, Half Power/Full Power switch, Reverb Footswitch jack, Speaker output, Speaker Phase switch, Speaker Impedance selector (4/8/16 ohm)
Made in: Corona, CA, U.S.A.