Cornford Hurricane

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The Hurricane responds to what you play, and how you play it. You can play with the gain setting to get rich, creamy distortion, and you can also dial it back to get sweet jazz sounds, the reverb can go from a gentle slap right through to a deep cavernous echo, and the tone controls can be set to give a soft, intimate warmth or can be adjusted to a raunchy rock tone.

These settings are all available, and are incredibly easy to find. I found myself playing with the controls for hours, not to find a great tone because, quite honestly, I could not find a tone that wasn’t great, but because the sheer flexibility of the Hurricane encouraged me to experiment.

So for tweaking, and for studio use, the amp has a huge amount of flexibility, belied by its simple controls. But what about in the context of a gig?

It is fine and dandy playing in the house, but you don’t have the luxury of endless tweaking in the heat of the moment, so a different strategy is needed.

Again, the Hurricane was an eye-opener. At sound check, the reviewer was asked to make sure the bass and keyboards had their space.

A quick tweak of the EQ settings and each instrument had room to breathe, without having to turn up. This was a nice surprise. The EQ controls are properly usable to shift the sonic entry and exit points of the sound, which is one sign of true pro-quality gear.

The next surprise came when playing. Once the EQ stage had been set, one can set the amp up to sit on the edge of break-up, and because the amp is organic, the rest of it can be covered by varying volume and pick attack, and tweak further with the guitar’s tone pot.

This is amplification as it was meant to be.

Sound Quality:

I could not find a sound I did not like. This was a revelation to me, as before this amp, almost every amp I have played through had some sound that I found unusable, or jarring in some way.

This amp is quite simply breath-taking in its sound.

The clean sound is rich and three dimensional, with notes that spring out of thin air. The sound is rich and musical and has a sweet chime that brings a Strat or Tele to life.

Funk sounds can be found aplenty here.

Turn down the treble, and boost the reverb, and the sound becomes soft and mellow, perfect for dreamy jazz.

Turn up the gain, to the point of breakup and you are rewarded with a sweet blues tone that will bring tears to your eyes.

Then, turn the gain up higher, and the amp will reward you with singing sustain and a raunchy rock tone that screams hair metal, or at more sensible levels will give you some sweet 70’s grit.

This is not one for those looking for high gain or drop-tuned riffage. The Hurricane is a musical amplifier, and responds to pick attack, so thrashers should look elsewhere.

Reliability:

It is a boutique product, point-to-point wired, with high quality components.

I have no concerns as to its reliability. IF it breaks, the construction means that any competent tech should be able to fix it quite easily.

Overall Rating:

I was astounded at the quality of the Hurricane. I was expecting something better than the Harlequin, which I didn’t like the sound of, but I was not expecting anything of this quality or sounding this good.

It is a one-channel amp, so variation of sound must either come from pedals or your guitar if you want to alter things mid-gig. Whilst it is fine to alter settings on stage, it can be problematic if favoured settings are forgotten.

It is sensible to set your guitar at mid-point and then set the amp to give you the tone you want, and use the guitar to control the gain.

The Hurricane also reacts well to pedals, and when set at the point of valve break-up and then pushed with an overdrive pedal will give you some powerful British rock tones, or with a chorus or delay will give you expansive dreamlike voices.

Overall, there is little to find fault with in the Cornford Hurricane.

It is a boutique amp, made to exacting standards, and which sounds absolutely superb. If you are looking for a versatile amplifier which can take you from pop to hard rock sounds, this is on your must-try list.

Expect to take it home with you, though, because once you hear it, you’ll want to keep it.