If you are not familiar with this, it is a Chinese copy of the 5 watt Fender ‘57 Champ, with the same 3 tube circuit and 8” speaker but an unusually modern looking little cab. Maybe a sloping front and tweed cover would make it a target for litigation? Oh, and most importantly, a ridiculously cheap price, especially here in Oz.
Well, it looks better in the flesh than the promotional pics. I wasn’t too keen on the faux carbon Tolex but it’s not so bad. From a short distance it just looks black, so that’s cool. The sound was great, and surprisingly warm n full for such a dinky little amp, but the circuit IS the real deal and I had read lots of great reviews, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising.
The fit and finish was pretty shocking but nothing that a little tweaking couldn’t fix. For such a ridiculously low price, I'm not surprised or bothered at all. I had plans for it anyway so I did the tweaking as I pulled it apart.
First up, I would recommend tightening all the bolts. The chassis was flopping about inside the cab because the mounting bolts were completely undone and some of the speaker bolts were also loose. Secondly, all the edges of the Tolex were lifting up inside the cab, so I just ran a warm iron over them to re-stick them down. Rather humorously, the front Badge was attached with sewing pins! Not screwed, not nailed but pins pushed through holes and bent over.
On the other hand the electronics actually look very well done. Metal switch n jacks, solid cable connectors n all the cable pairs twisted together, etc. Almost seems like the electronics factory is at a much higher level than the cab factory.
As I had a spare 10” Jensen speaker and some retro looking grill cloth (courtesy of my Princeton Reverb Mod), I had decided to make a new 10” baffle, just for the fun of it. I thought, if I liked the results maybe I’d make a whole new cab in the style of a Fender Champ, so the first thing I did was to measure up the cab, and verified that a 10” would be an easy fit. Although, I gotta say that the little Celestion 8” speaker looks the part, sounds good and is soooooo cute. I can always just drop the original baffle n speaker back in if I want. Although it is a hell of a tight fit. I suspect they got the baffle dimensions a little wrong.
I knocked up the new baffle in a couple of hours, and in no time had turned my ‘Sweet Baby’ into a neat n tidy, ‘Juicy Juvenile’ with a bit of retro thrown in.
New 10"
Original 8"
Original look
Well, it looks better in the flesh than the promotional pics. I wasn’t too keen on the faux carbon Tolex but it’s not so bad. From a short distance it just looks black, so that’s cool. The sound was great, and surprisingly warm n full for such a dinky little amp, but the circuit IS the real deal and I had read lots of great reviews, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising.
The fit and finish was pretty shocking but nothing that a little tweaking couldn’t fix. For such a ridiculously low price, I'm not surprised or bothered at all. I had plans for it anyway so I did the tweaking as I pulled it apart.
First up, I would recommend tightening all the bolts. The chassis was flopping about inside the cab because the mounting bolts were completely undone and some of the speaker bolts were also loose. Secondly, all the edges of the Tolex were lifting up inside the cab, so I just ran a warm iron over them to re-stick them down. Rather humorously, the front Badge was attached with sewing pins! Not screwed, not nailed but pins pushed through holes and bent over.
On the other hand the electronics actually look very well done. Metal switch n jacks, solid cable connectors n all the cable pairs twisted together, etc. Almost seems like the electronics factory is at a much higher level than the cab factory.
As I had a spare 10” Jensen speaker and some retro looking grill cloth (courtesy of my Princeton Reverb Mod), I had decided to make a new 10” baffle, just for the fun of it. I thought, if I liked the results maybe I’d make a whole new cab in the style of a Fender Champ, so the first thing I did was to measure up the cab, and verified that a 10” would be an easy fit. Although, I gotta say that the little Celestion 8” speaker looks the part, sounds good and is soooooo cute. I can always just drop the original baffle n speaker back in if I want. Although it is a hell of a tight fit. I suspect they got the baffle dimensions a little wrong.
I knocked up the new baffle in a couple of hours, and in no time had turned my ‘Sweet Baby’ into a neat n tidy, ‘Juicy Juvenile’ with a bit of retro thrown in.
New 10"
Original 8"
Original look
Sometimes it just takes some posting outloud.........
