Vintage Hylight era Hiwatts were made to incredible quality standard and are highly regarded. They were very expensive when new, and continue to draw premium prices on the used market.
Years after the Hylight era, the name was bought and passed around. Some of the companies that used the name put out products that had QC and reliability problems. You need to know what you are looking at as cosmetically they all look pretty much the same from the front of the amp.
A new company secured the name a few years back and has indicated a commitment to restoring the brands reputation. I doubt it's possible to make Hylight quality amps at anything close to competitive prices, but AFAIK the new company is better than the previous company Music Ground.
Hiwatts are generally regarded as very HiFi, but IMHO that is a bit misleading because the amps have a pretty strong baked in characteristic sound that you can not dial out. IMHO they were tuned more for max clean power than pleasing OD characteristics. Great pedal platforms, but in my experience if you want natural drive from the tube output section, there are far better choices. Typically the preamp is relatively low gain, but you may be able to get a bit of drive if you really crank up the inputs. If I remember correctly I can get a bit of drive out of the preamp for my 79 DR103, but not my 76 DR201. I tried a few days ago and the DR201 remained clean with the input wide open. Late 70s preamps have a bit more gain. I can also get a bit of drive out of my Reeves 400 preamp.
Reeves and Hi-Tone both make very good, near clones of the Hylight era amps. My perception is Hi-Tone is truer to the original designs, and Reeves makes slightly more modernizations. Reeves makes a 225 and 400 for bass. I believe Hi-Tones biggest amp is 200.
Here's a wiki:
Hiwatt - Wikipedia
Also MHuss built a website that has lots of great info.
Mark Huss Hiwatt Amplifier Pages
I believe Mark Huss previously ran Vintage Hiwatt Restorations, which merged into Hi-Tone. I believe Mr Huss is Hi-Tones resident tech and Vintage Hiwatt Restorations eventually was shuttered after Hi-Tone really started getting on solid footing.
The first DR201 shown on this page is actually my 76.
MHuss Hiwatt Amplifier Pages - Detail Views
I bought it off Ebay from one of the Hi-Tone's owners, which led to my purchase of a pair of Hi-Tone HT4121 cabs.
The current company that owns the Hiwatt name prototyped a DR405 with 8 output tubes. I believe it benched over 500W clean, but was never brought to market. I have read that Hylight made some 8 tube DR405s, but they were not reliable and tended to experience catastrophic failures. Normal DR405s only have 6 output tubes.
