Fender Champion 600 Amp

[GuitarsCanada]

Review Submitted By
Gene Machine

Product Name
Fender Champion 600 Amp

Would you recommend this product to others?
yes

Your overall review of the productgreat

Did you feel there was good value for the money?
yes


What is your name?
Gene Conrad


What is your website?
www.myspace.com/thescoundrelband

How would you best describe yourself?
Part Timer

please select a choice
I own this gear

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Your full review

I bought this as a low power tube amp for home. It has not disappointed.

To start, with a 6" speaker and 5Watts, there is not much this is going to do at a large jam or gig. BUT, at home when you want to get a bit of tubey crunch without blowing the windows out from your Twin, this is a great little amp.

But for the price point, you really have to compare to the Epi Valve Junior. I have the EVJ head and run it through a celestion greenback 12" speaker in a MesaBoogie cab. The Epi is much louder and has the classic 60's marshall sound, where the Fender is much quieter (probly due to the speaker size) and is much brighter sounding. Neither one has tone control so you really have to work with your gear. But for Sleepwalk, nothing beats a Strat plugged into a slapback echo into the Champ turned to about 9 o'clock. Very controllable distortion depending on where your volume knob is. If you step on a tube screamer, wow! In fact, plug in a Les Paul>TS9>Champ = KABOOM! wonderful stuff.

At $225 Cdn, it's a decent deal for a tube amp for home. I can't remember the manufacturer of the tubes, but it's not cheap Sovteks. I'll check and repost later. Decent tubes though.

I'm happy I bought it, and it's all I use at home now, and I have a basement full of amps.

Cheers,
Gene

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Gear used for this review

Strat,
Les Paul

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[Fluffy]

My stepson recently bought on e for 199.00 va at Tom Lee in Vancouver and he is very happy with the amp.:smilie_flagge17:

[traynor_garnet]

I've been meaning to try one of these out. However, I keep wondering how they compare to a SF Champ?

TG

[jimmy c g]

being a fan and past owner of black and silver face champs I had to try the modern version so I rented a new one from L&M and sadly I personally found this amp to be sterile and very lifeless.I went accoustic a year ago and stupidly let my 65 black face go for 800,now Im electric again and still have a Vox Pathfinder 15 r (made in Vietnam!) and honestly this $100 used import blew the 600 right away.Renting first when possible can save money and let you try something without getting stuck.Thats my opinion for what its worth, Jim

[mhammer]

I took a peek in the back of one the other day, and one of the ways in which it significantly differs from most of the single-ended Fender amps is the absence of a tube rectifier. Use of a solid-state rectifier will tend to reduce the degree of "sponginess" people sometimes value in an older Class-A tube amp. On the other hand, a SS rectifier will push a little more output from the power tube and some folks value the dynamics more than the sponginess. Question of taste.

[whammybar]

I didn't care for them at all. Very boxy sounding and with a strat don't handle pedals well at all. I suppose after 50 hours at full crank the speaker will sound a lot better but stock out of the box? No way. Looking at the price of the reinvented Blues Junior and it's smaller counterpart (the name escapes me at this moment) I'd save the extra bucks and go with one of those.

[rollingdam]

I bought the Gretsch version of this amp for $189 and am happy with it-the tweed cab looks cool too.

[whammybar]

Sorry to post twice but I had to add that these little Champion 600's take on a whole new huge sound through a big cab however. No boxiness to be found just sweetness. So if you want a low watt amp with a huge sound then, like the original review, this would be a good amp to have.

[Beevee]

I bought one and switch out the tunes and speaker and found it to be very usable. It is worth the money

[rhh7]

I have the Gretsch version as well, and really enjoy it. Simple, very nice tone, plenty of power for my living room practice sessions.

[mhammer]

The posted schematic of this amp ( http://www.fender.com/support/amp_schematics/pdfs/Champion%20600%20Schematic.pdf ) reveals that it has what essentially amounts to a fender tonestack inside which is "preset". Turn your attention to the resistor ladder made of R19/R22/R20/R21. Now turn your attention to the tonestack in an amp like a standard Blackface Champ: http://www.ampwares.com/ffg/schem/champ_aa764_schem.gif

See the similarity? The 180k/75k pair made by R20/R21 is essentially a standard 250k treble pot/control set to a fixed position. That resistor pair can easily be replaced by a 250k pot with the pot wiper being the junction of the two resistors. The 15k R19 component can also be turned into a midrange control as it is on the Vibrato channel of this Super reverb: http://www.ampwares.com/ffg/schem/super_reverb_ab763_schem.gif

If you replace R19 with a 25k pot, you'll get a few advantages. First, you'll be able to dial in a nice midrange dip/scoop as the pot resistance is decreased. Second, by turning the resistance value of that pot up, you'll actually get a sort of rounded boost as the increased pot resistance reduces the amount of passive signal bleed. You could probably even get more boost with a 50k pot, though I imagine you'd need to tinker with the taper of the pot to get optimum dialability.

I was turned onto this by a 25 year-old article in POLYPHONY which showed how simply lifting the ground side of R19 (and its functional equivalents in other Fender amps) effectively cancelled the tonestack and all of the passive loss it introduces to produce tone shaping. With less passive loss, more signal hits the second half of the 12AX7 for some nice overdrive.

Finally, note that the classic fender "bright" switch is essentially a small value cap across the input and wiper lugs of the volume pot, as amply illustrated in the Super reverb schem. No reason why that couldn't be implemented in the Champion 600.

Bottom line: The Champion 600 makes a nice base for an easy to mod amp that can be turned into what is essentially a Blackface Champ for much less than the cost of one on the open market. Plugged into a bigger speaker, like a 10" or 12" in a different cab, I'll bet it makes a really nice amp.

[Balou]

mhammer or anyone, do you think that the schematic of the Gretsh electromatic is similar than the one for the Champ? I would like to do the mods that mhammer talk about champ.

Regards

[mhammer]

I was just hunting around for a schematic (I take it this is the G5222?) and could not locate a free one posted on-line. The posted specs, however, suggest that it is not that far off from the Champion 600, so I'll say a tentative "Yes" for now. If you could find me a schem for it, I'd give you a more detailed and unequivocal answer.

[Ripper]

I got a chance to play one of these the other day. I wasn't overly impressed and if I was going to buy a small amp, I'd put my money into the epi valve junior. It sounds better to my ears and the modded versions are very good.

[boomer]

I have the Champion 600. Great little practice tube amp. Thinking about using it in the studio.
Thumbs up.

[fraser]

i love mine- certainly isnt very flexible, just does one sound, but i dig it lots- perfect for playing at home, recording or if im away from home, its very portable and i can use it about anywhere.

[Ripper]

i love mine- certainly isnt very flexible, just does one sound, but i dig it lots- perfect for playing at home, recording or if im away from home, its very portable and i can use it about anywhere.

Did it get better sounding as that speaker broke in? I was wondering if it was just the new speaker that was putting me off of the one I tried.

[Balou]

I recently get the Gretsch version of the Champ. And let me tell you, it's an amazing amp. Even with the stock speaker, for the price it's a good little amp.

But... Yesterday i plug it to an external 1-12 cab with a Weber Alnico silver bell in. And wow, it's like the amp was growing ten time (a bit less ;-) it's normal shape. The sound and tone was incredible. The sweet spot was delectable. Then i decide to put a tube screamer and a chorus in front of it. And you know what? i can't stop playing, i was stick in front of it like a bug in honey. Now i'm thinking to use it just as a head for this cab.
The speaker in my cab is very sensitive, and i'm sure it's nothing less than 6 to 10 db comparing to the stock speaker of the Gretsch. More, the cab is 8 ohms and the speaker in the Gretsch is 4 ohms, normaly the 8 ohms is suppose to be quiter than the 4 ohms but it was more louder and very louder. I can imagine the sound if my cab was 4 ohms. So if you can affort it, use an external cab with it and you'll be at the paradise of small amps.
Someone try it with a 2-12 or 4-12 cab? I'm currious. I think i'll try it with my Fender blues deville combo. There is a 4-10 arrangement speaker in it so he he.

[rhh7]

I have the Gretsch as well, really enjoy it!

Simple, great tone!

[fraser]

Did it get better sounding as that speaker broke in? I was wondering if it was just the new speaker that was putting me off of the one I tried.

hi ripper-
the amp sounded better as the speaker broke in- tighter, more balanced and less prone to farting. but i dont know if its enough to change your experience with it. it still sounds the same, just better-
ive tried it into other larger speakers and it sounds a lot better. but again, its sort of still the same, just fuller.
i like this amp because it does what i like very well- a sort of clean, but with a bit of hair when cranked, responds very well to how you attack your strings.
i like to control my amps with the guitars volume and tone pots, and just crank the amp. this works great for me in that capacity.
i can definately see how others would not like it as much- its just one sound.
i have a much modded epi valve jr i use when i want a thick screaming type of sound, but it rarely gets used. and the 600 is not as good sounding as my sf champ, but i use the 600 more. i use strats with low output pups, and the pups sit really low in the pickguards- this amp does exactly the kind of clean tones i like- not exactly clean per se; but clean enough that im just playing the guitar and not so much the pups and amp. im not able to grab a string and get a big fat sustaining singing sound, but im not trying to do that.
i think that if you didnt care for it to begin with, its likely not worth your while persuing.
into a bigger speaker and a cab, maybe a pedal or two, and itll sound great, but other amps already do that better
hope i made some sense lol!

[Ripper]

Hey Fraser,
I think partly I was expecting to sound somewhat like my tweed champ, and it didn't. I crank my amps and use the guitar volume to clean up for me (depending on the amp I'm using that isn't always that clean). I guess I just like more hair...:smile: I don't play alot of stuff these days that requires a really clean sound, so if I do need that I go to my bigger fenders. Thanks for the input Fraser it's greatly appreciated.

[shiva]

Waiting on my tubes, but just swapped out the speaker with a Weber Signature.

As stock, for 200 dollars, you just can't go wrong. Speaker has very little low end, but it is a tiny 6 inch and it's pretty apparent Fender put the money in the amp portion. Replacing it with the weber added a lot more depth , more volume, a bit more bass, and a clearer tone. Upgrading by spending 30 bucks on a speaker was well worth it, though a bit of work, as you had to dismantle it a bit to get in there.

Once I get the JJ tubes in, I expect it will improve further. From reading other people's comments, it really shines when a external cab is hooked up, but I use mine solely as a practise amp. As it stands, great little amp, better than the solid state amps in the price range I have heard, and my main guitar sounded very sweet once the new speaker was put in.