Small Vintage Fender Amps That Distort/Overdrive Well.

[imsilly]

I am looking to downsize my from my Fender Bassman to a smaller vintage amp. I already have a nice Blonde Bandmaster for clean tones. So I would like a smaller vintage amp that I can crank for great distortion something under 15 watts ideally.

So maybe a Champ, Princeton or a Deluxe. What circuits of these amps give the best tone when overdriven. I don't really need anything with dramatic headroom, in fact the more distortion the better.

It's a bit of a needle in a haystack for me with these smaller fender amps. There are so many variations in circuits and tones. I like them all really, but I am only after one thing fat overdrive so I don't mind a one trick pony if it does it best.

One specific question is how does the Champ 600 5B1 compare to the popular Champ 5F1 circuit. I noticed that the further you go back into tweed era amps the more the easier and warmer the overdrive. So would this really early Champ circuit be a place to start looking for fender overdrive?

Thanks

[Lance]

I'd strongly recommend something tweed to meet your requirements. Any of the later circuits, while sounding great, don't dirty up so quickly and sound as warm at lower volume levels. Your biggest issue with the smallest amps will be speaker size. I'd go as large as possible - like a tweed deluxe. The smaller amps sound cool but the little speakers make them rather boxy sounding. Look for a tweed kit from mission or weber as a great path forward.

[TeleV]

+1 Lance

Here are a pair of Tweed Deluxes...nice overdrive

[imsilly]

I know Victoria do a 5F1 clone with a 12 inch speaker would that also get over the boxy sound of a small speaker?

[valiant]

The Valvetrain classic 205 is a 1955 Tweed Princeton (5F2A) the next size up from a Champ (5F1) and has the addition of a tone control and is a 5 watt 1x8 but Valvetrain also do a 205 "TallBoy" which is 1x12.

[muchxs]

Originally Posted by imsilly

One specific question is how does the Champ 600 5B1 compare to the popular Champ 5F1 circuit. I noticed that the further you go back into tweed era amps the more the easier and warmer the overdrive. So would this really early Champ circuit be a place to start looking for fender overdrive?

I don't have the 5B1 schematic but it's similar to the 5C1.

http://www.ampwares.com/schematics/champ_5c1.pdf

Here's 5F1:

http://www.ampwares.com/schematics/champ_5f1.pdf

The 5C1 uses a grid leak biased pentode preamp while the 5F1 uses cascaded cathode biased triodes. Pentodes have their own tone. If you're in the U.K. you may have heard pentode tone, a lot of European amps use EF86 pentodes on the front end.

The 5F1 is closer to the classic Fender tone we all know and love. It's capable of raging screaming distortion.

5F1s are "boxy sounding"? That's an internet urban legend. Get it up off the floor on a chair or on top of another amp. Keep it a couple feet away from the walls. Choose your speaker wisely. A lot of pickers struggle to get clean headroom out of a Champ, a 12" speaker is a step in that direction. That tiny chassis in a bigger cabinet just looks goofy to me and worse, the tubes are dead center in the cabinet where they'll cause a clearance problem with a Celestion Blue for instance. It makes a lot more sense to me to build a tweed Princeton with a 12" speaker. The PA tube is still dead center in a Princeton chassis.