Epi Valve Jr vs Fender Champion 600

[Del Pickup]

My son needs to get a slightly bigger amp for taking to school band practices. At the moment he uses my little Smokey amp plugged into a cabinet I made which has a single 10in blue frame Eminence speaker that came out of my old Bassman RI.

I've seen an Epi Valve Jr head in a local store which is at a good price. But in another store they have a Champion 600 which obviously costs more but is probably a comparable amp.

Any suggestions as to which might be more suited to my son's Epi Les Paul Jr?

If I get him this I'll also want to use the amp for band practices and recording at home - both for guitar and harmonica.

[superhand]

I have heard from a fairly reliable source that they are both pretty good small amps and that the Champ is brighter than the Epiphone.

[AnthemBassMan]

-I'd check and see which version the Epi head is. If it's a version 3, I'd say get it. But the Champion DOES have it's own speaker. Maybe you could take the cab you built to both stores and plug in. That way you know what tones will be coming out of the cab.

L8R,
Matt

[pchilson]

My money would go on the Valve jr. More versatile. Can plug into any ohm cab. Champ600 only has the 6" speaker and a 4 ohm speaker out. I've had both and liked the Vjr better. YMMV so try them both out as AnthemBassMan suggests.

[Post Toastie]

Slighty bigger? The Smokey amp is a 1/2 watt amp the size of a pack of cigarettes that will power a decent speaker cabinet.I own a Smokey and a valve Jr Version 3 with External cabinet.I would get a Vox ac-4 amp that goes from1/4 to 1 to 4 watts.

[SamBooka]

I have both (actually a VJr V1 Combo, V3 head and a Champ600).
I will say what everyone has said.. the VJrs are DARRRRRK.
I bought them, plugged them in, made them work, and used them as end tables to hold my beer.
The Champ I did some mods on to make it more tweedesque. By all accounts this is not necessary. The champ is a fine amp (for 200$ new anyway.. you get what you pay for) but if you have even half an ear for tone you want to change out the tubes. 3/4 an ear? Break in the speakers. 9/10 of an ear? replace the speakers. Other than that there is no point in going overboard modding the champ other than to learn about modding amps.
Change the speaker and the tubes and the transformers (ala bitmo).. you might as well build a good kit from scratch.

[07 road house]

I have tried and tried to like the champion , as I have had 2 of them. I did a tube swap and all but the dang things just dont sound good to me. Epiphone valve Junior sounds way better, but it is a little too dirty for me. I say get a pro junior they sound really good.

[Del Pickup]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

One further question - does anyone know the impedence of the blue frame Eminence speakers from the Bassman RI? And, if I was to build another cabinet to house both of these speakers that I've got what the combined impedence would be? There's nothing marked on either speaker so I've no way of telling.

[klast]

For band practice, if you need clean sound, neither of these two will cut it.

I think you need something like a Blues Junior.

Klas

[jjkrause84]

I remember watching this great Japanese movie as a kid....

There were two warring Samurai. Their armies met in the field, one wearign red and the other wearing blue. They fought on and on, slowly wearing each other down. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to either of them, an army dressed in whtie led by let another Samurai seeking to expand his power waited patiently on the reverse slope of a nearby hill as their leaders watch the ensuing battle. Once both the red and blue armies were all but exhausted the white army rushed into battle, finished them both off and their Samurai took another step on the road to Shogun-hood.

So, in our little story here who represents the white army?

[dqami]

Get a Vox. AC4TV or a used Pathfinder. You won't have to mod them to get good sound.

[fly135]

My vote is for a Super Champ XD or the smaller Vibro Champ XD.

[kiwi blue]

This might seem radical, but why not just take your son's guitar to the stores and try the amps?

[musicalmartin]

get a Blackstar HT5 .

[Del Pickup]

Originally Posted by kiwi blue

This might seem radical, but why not just take your son's guitar to the stores and try the amps?

Oh, gosh, I never thought of that......duh!

Of course, I'd be doing that (or bringing the amps back home with me for a test drive) but I usually find it useful to get some input from others when looking at options. Everyone's got their own thoughts on which amp/guitar/whatever has its merits or issues based on personal experience and sometimes you might just pick up on things that you wouldn't otherwise notice until you'd bought the thing.

[Tdot]

Originally Posted by Del Pickup

If I get him this I'll also want to use the amp for band practices and recording at home - both for guitar and harmonica.

A bunch of samples on Youtube









I have both of these, like both. But I'd let go of the Epi first.

[outbreak]

Is this the amp your son will be using most of the time? If so and he doesn't have much pedals those 2 amps may get abit boring for him. Have you considered something like the SuperChamps and G-decs? or even the vox ad30?

[Del Pickup]

Thanks for that Tdot.

The Champ sounds better with the guitar but the Epi sounds less ratty with the harp!!!

Looks like I need to try both for myself and see what conclusion I reach.

[panyd]

get kldguitar GT5HR, it clean . have spring reverb, 6l6

[panyd]

or austrlia BWM chimp it is 5w

[Tdot]

Originally Posted by Del Pickup

Thanks for that Tdot.

The Champ sounds better with the guitar but the Epi sounds less ratty with the harp!!!

Looks like I need to try both for myself and see what conclusion I reach.

That's what I think, but everyone has their own style and the Epi can be smoother than that example (I was just trying find an LP with non-modded amps). The VJr is fun if I want to wail on the SG and make a lot of noise, and it's great with a harp (plug in the green bullet and honk away), mixed feelings (mostly good) on single coils.

The 600 is cleaner, lighter sound. I really like it with vintage style pups. The tiny speaker is good in the living room, maybe not so good to jam with others. The LP+600 guy also had more videos with pedals.

The cool thing about both amps is they are already as small as a head, and the speakers can be easily unplugged to use a bigger cabinet. The Epi head unit is nice, but it forces you to buy/build at least one cab to go with it.