Fender Champion 600

[Gr8tfulEd]

Actually, it's rather a fun amp. Naturally it's not going to be anyone's primary, but for a quick noodle or out on the back deck it does really well. My wife said she like the tone on this better than my blues jr.! No accounting for taste I guess.
Crank the volume and use the guitar volume to control it. Sounds pretty good, especially if you throw a Holy Grail in front of it.

[popthree]

looks like something you'd pack lunch in to me

[D Phillips]

I got one of those today! I returned my Blues Jr for one of these amps. It fits my needs perfectly. Mine sounded great right out of the box. Definitely not a toy.

[Dad Gad]

I Like it alot. They are a bit tame out of the box, but i changed the tubes and played it enough to where the speaker has smoothed out and it sounds awesome!! great clean tone if i back off my attack and a nasty growl if i lay into the strings when its dimed. I also biased the ax7 a little warmer by lowering R3 to 1k ohms, although i may go lower to about 750ohms. I have run it thru a 1x12 cab with a hellatone 30 and it sounds fantastic. If I want more, i just kick in a OCD with the gain all the way off and the volume high, and it roars. I have a 6" weber ceramic speaker on order, so we'll see what that brings. I am gonna run it in a a/b/y config with my evj head and use the 600 as the clean side.

[FarmerRoy]

I just got mine yesterday and out of the box, it's much better sounding than I was expecting. I changed the stock Chinese tubes with some JJs I had on hand and it sounds even better.......warmer, fuller and with less buzzing when the volume knob is maxed. The stock speaker sounds pretty good, and my general impression of the amp is that it's well put together and built to last. Not something that everyone will want or need, but it sure fits in with what I wanted. Plus it looks cool.....besides, how can you put a value on the nostalgia factor?

I bet Fender sells a ton of these little amps.

[trag-o-caster]

Well, I'm excited by the fact that we FINALLY have a small, inexpensive, low watt amp that is not loaded with EL84's. I was getting downright sick of seeing all of these amps coming out with a single EL84. Not that I dislike EL84's, but I'd prefer 6V6, or 6L6, and those seemed to be reserved for the more expensive, and larger amps.

[MaskedRider]

Radiohead uses a Champion 600 for recording(an original one).

[shorty ray]

I've had one for three weeks, the more I play it the better it sounds. I didn't change a thing. Love It!

[stratohiker]

Got me one on the way. I contacted Bob at Eurotubes too, about some JJ's for it. The Weber Alnico option sounds interesting. May check that out after the much touted "break in period"..........Should be a fun amp

[Doc]

With a different speaker it drives nice. Out of the box the clean was OK to me. I do not know if switching the speaker (another 6") is the answer if it were mine, or to think of it like a head.

[2Buck Chuck]

The GC near me finally had one, and I spent about an hour with it using various guitars to evaluate the sound. Here are my opinions in no particular order:

- With the volume at 12, the tone was amazing. I was impressed with the amount of bass that was reproduced by the 6" speaker.
- Turning the amp volume down to anything lower than about 10 resulted in a volume level that was so low, it was unusable. It was VERY soft.
- With the volume at 12, guitar volume had to be 3/4 to full. anything less was too soft to be usable (by unusable I mean that the bass response rolled off dramatically, and I don't think a good sound could be gotten even with close mic'ing)

- Telecasters sounded best (Highway 1, Baja, & Thinline were tested) all tele sparkle and shine. Very nice (again only at or near full volume).
- A 72 Deluxe Tele also sounded great, but the neck HB really got the amp to fart a bit, and there was noticeable speaker break up.
- A Les Paul with P90's sounded pretty good, slightly less breakup and fart, but rounder sounding as you would expect.
- An HSS strat also sounded very nice on all pickups. The bridge HB had less farting and breakup, probably due to the brighter tone of bridge p'ups in general.
- I did not hear or notice any hum, hiss or other anomolies from the amp. It seemed pretty quiet to me.
- the amp is really cute, smaller than I thought, and very light weight.
- GC didn't any other class A 5watters for an A/B test, but I did test an Epi Valve Jr. several weeks ago when they had one. It must have been old, because the hum was very bad, but I do recall being very impressed with the sound volume. Just going by memory, I would say that the Epi is much louder.
- The volume problem (if there IS one) might be due to a number of things: the small 6" speaker just can't move enough air; the spkr may not be very efficient.
- not much you can do about speaker break up except get a better speaker, but farting could be caused by insufficient power supply capacitance. The voltage rails could be sagging under heavy loading. Beefier caps may help.

*IF* I get one of these, my main use would be with my resonator (it has a LACE p'up in it) for a dirty slide blues sound for small solo coffe house gigs. I've contacted Jensen transformers and found a suitable tranny that would work as a DI output to isolate and step down the speaker output so the amp could be plugged into a PA or larger amp. Then I could gig with it, and definitely not break my back hauling a big guitar amp.

[telepbrman]

I like mine, I pick an 55' Esquire Copy and a bit of echo....she is rockabilly and classic country to me. Old school. I like a nerd student type vibe sometimes and she works for me.

[D Phillips]

Originally Posted by 2Buck Chuck

- Turning the amp volume down to anything lower than about 10 resulted in a volume level that was so low, it was unusable. It was VERY soft.

I run mine in my home studio at about 7 most of the time with great success.

[2Buck Chuck]

Originally Posted by D Phillips

I run mine in my home studio at about 7 most of the time with great success.

Interesting. Maybe there was something wrong with the unit I tested at GC. On a thread over at the FDP Forum we've been discussing the Champ. MadMos replied to my post that he tested the 600 with a 4x12 cab, and it was much louder, leading us to believe that the speaker Fender has chosen just isn't very efficient. The amp still farted with the 4x12, so I'm thinking that the power supply caps need to be beefed up.

[telepbrman]

I just picked up another Champion 600 and I now run two of them...this is a cool little rig, dy.

[Jaybird]

I played one at GC yesterday with my harp mic and was not overly impressed. I thought it sounded a litttle boxy, almost like a power kazoo. The guy told me that he thought the speaker was not that hot, and we both agreed that if you need to change out the speaker, and get better tubes, that you may as well put that money into a better amp. I own a number of small watt amps (Including 2 real Champs, VC and Regular), so if someone has no tube amp at all, this may be OK. Every ear has its own taste buds. (Yechh) To take a line from an old Cheech and Chong record--"Hey man, is that a real poncho? Or is it a Sears poncho?"
I will say that the 600 reissue is a fine looking little amp, and feels to be sturdy also.

[mellow-tron]

I'm really digging my Champion600. I also like it running at about 7. Add in a compressor and some delay and I'm all set. The speaker works well for me in my apartment, where I can't get too loud and have to watch the bass levels. I might talk to Weber about a replacement, but for now I'm happy. I would recomend to anyone to immediately get rid of the stock Chinese tubes. They definately aren't helping the amp.

Here's a quick vid I made with my tele and the Champion600 that shows the "before and after" of a tube swap:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...45474187&hl=en

[D Phillips]

Originally Posted by 2Buck Chuck

Interesting. Maybe there was something wrong with the unit I tested at GC. On a thread over at the FDP Forum we've been discussing the Champ. MadMos replied to my post that he tested the 600 with a 4x12 cab, and it was much louder, leading us to believe that the speaker Fender has chosen just isn't very efficient. The amp still farted with the 4x12, so I'm thinking that the power supply caps need to be beefed up.

I have never found GC to be the best place to test the tonal qualities of amps and guitars.

[60's-Vintage]

Originally Posted by mellow-tron

I'm really digging my Champion600. I also like it running at about 7. Add in a compressor and some delay and I'm all set. The speaker works well for me in my apartment, where I can't get too loud and have to watch the bass levels. I might talk to Weber about a replacement, but for now I'm happy. I would recomend to anyone to immediately get rid of the stock Chinese tubes. They definately aren't helping the amp.

Here's a quick vid I made with my tele and the Champion600 that shows the "before and after" of a tube swap:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...45474187&hl=en

Sweet!

[ibobunot]

Originally Posted by Jaybird

To take a line from an old Cheech and Chong record--"Hey man, is that a real poncho? Or is it a Sears poncho?"

Thats a Frank Zappa line...

She said she was
A Magic Mama
And she could throw a mean Tarot
And carried on without a comma
That she was someone I should know

(Is that a real poncho...I mean
Is that a Mexican poncho
or is that a Sears poncho?
Hmmm...no foolin'
--Camarillo Brillo--

mellow-tron made that Champ sound like a real poncho....