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USA PLAYERS SERIES

The Bad Cat USA Players Series is essentially the exact same circuit as it's Cub III counterpart except for two things. 1) The absence of the 5 position tone control, and 2) the Players Series utilizes military grade printed circuit boards in place of handwired, point to point solder connections. The Players Series amps use the same components, transformers, chassis, and speakers, and are hand built right here in the USA at the Bad Cat shop in Irvine, CA.

The Bad Cat USA Players Series comes in both 15 watts and 40. As well, both the 15R and 40R are available in a head and a 1x12 combo configuration.

Since the circuit is essentially the same as the Cub III, we might as well just use the same description, right?

The Players Series Cub comes with a very straight-forward set of controls and gives you that British Vox-like chime. Like the Cub III Handwired series, it then takes a turn in a more innovative direction. The first switch on the Cub allows you to change the preamp input stage from 12AX7 based to EF86 based.

What's the significance of this you ask?

The 12AX7 is the sound we're all familiar with, and when switched to the EF86 you'll notice a hotter signal, with more headroom and definition. The next switch engages a gain boost on the amps Treble/Bass tone stack. Combining these two switches can take you from the original Cub tone to new tonal territories previously unavailable. Included is a two button footswitch that let's you take advantage of these options on the fly! Now you can go from classic chimey cleans, to punchy grit all just with the amp. Bad Cat has even beefed up the reverb be more warm, musical, and plate like.

All of these great features are fed to the power amp through Bad Cat's new proprietary "K Master" Circuit. The K Master separates the Preamp and Poweramp sections; letting you take full advantage of your amps power section without clipping your preamp. We all know how great power tube breakup is, and how different it is from preamp tube breakup. Now you can make use of the full wattage of your power section, and you preamp can remain nice, full, and clean.

So, what else is up with the USA Players Series?

Well, several things. The Bad Cat USA Players Series Aircraft Aluminum chassis not only improves the shielding of the circuit, but reduces overall weight by about 2 lbs. They also changed the grounding approach to a more traditional method instead of the techniques used by many other amp builders to save time. And for those of you who need it, Bad Cat includes a passive effect loop in USA Players Series Cubs.

Now tell us about the K Master Volume.

Glad you asked! The K Master Volume is Bad Cat's approach to the ever popular question; How do we reduce the volume while maintaining tonal integrity with a tube amp? You want to gain up the power amp section while leaving the pre-amp clean? Now you can. Turn down the master volume to bedroom low all while maintaining your tone intact. Power amp gain is different than pre-amp gain. Until now, master volumes just attenuated. The drive to the power section was always dependent on the drive coming from the pre-amp. Now Bad Cat has figured out a way to separate the pre-amp from the power amp gain, and they're calling it the K Master. Before this you couldn't drive the power amp hard without pushing the pre-amp into saturation. The K Master patent pending technology has allowed Bad Cat to re-invent the concept of the master volume.

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