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That's really the crux of it. On all sides, about all gear. "Good" is so relative.... I used to try all kinds of things to "upgrade" amps and guitars and pedals.... I still do it, a BIT... but the older I get (I'm 51 now), I really want something I don't HAVE to mess with to "get it to sound good". I have to at least LIKE it out-of-the-box, or it's gone. If I really like it, then MAYBE I would upgrade a bridge, or a speaker, etc. But I have to AT LEAST LIKE it out-of-the-box. One man's magic is another man's mess.
Originally Posted by Marcel_A
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07-17-2020 09:22 AM
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It must be the age. I’m 51 asswell.
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My toes are fine! Originally Posted by Marcel_A
I don‘t like the way you generalize things with statements like „that‘s a bad amp“. It isn‘t and what sounds bad for you may be fine in someone elses ears. I‘m playing vintage Fender amps and owned some boutique amps- oh ja, I guess I can tell good amps from bad amps. Even Paul Pigat likes the tiny cub8...
A good speaker and good tubes are the basic ingredients for any tube amp, but that’s a part of the game with them. Anyway, good to see you‘re happy with your solid state amp. I personally don‘t like ss or digital amplifiers because of their basic tonal characters. But I wouldn’t call them „bad amps“.
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Oh, but i like tubes. I just don’t like the Laney. It had nothing to do with ss vs tubes. I played an lot of good tube-amps. The cub 8 is just not one of them.
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As said above- solid luck with your solid state amp! Originally Posted by Marcel_A
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I just grabbed a 5 watt Fender Champion 600 with an EHX power tube and a Tung-Sol preamp tube with the stock 6" speaker. The previous owner also replaced the original grill cloth with one made of a thinner fabric. It also has an output jack for an external speaker if you want! I love the tone and it's the perfect volume for my small apartment!
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Why the '600' name? Is that the output in milliwatts?
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My amplifier is the reissue of the original Champion 600 with a PCB instead of point to point wiring. These came out about 10-15 years ago. They're now discontinued. For small apt use this amp is awesome! Most people modify these amps but I wouldn't change a thing. I am blown away by this little amp! The Low input channel allows nice clean tones up to about 7-8 on the control. The High channel give a little more volume and a little more breakup at lower volume if you want. I use that channel at about 3-5 on the volume control and it's perfect for the living room. Originally Posted by sgosnell
Why the '600' name? Is that the output in milliwatts?
The original Fender "Champion 600" was produced between 1948-53. Fender also made a Champion 800 with an 8" speaker while the Champion 600 model has a 6" speaker. Other than that...that's all I know. After 1953 Fender went to the tweed style cabinet that everyone is familiar with.
Here's an original 1950 Fender Champion 600.
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...that is heavy. I am certified 5kgs or below :-) Originally Posted by Little Jay
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I put a Jensen NEO 12-100 speaker in mine and made a pine cab. It weights just under 8.5 kg!
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It seems to refer to the size of the speaker. Originally Posted by sgosnell
Why the '600' name? Is that the output in milliwatts?
Note on the Laney cub 8: i played it this morning for a while. It's NOT a bad amp. It's fine (i'm suffering serious moodswings when it comes to amps . . . ), but it has some limitations the DV mark has not.
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on the Champion 600 Reissue:
The reissue is a nice little, blackface-voiced amp. It bears almost no resemblance tonally to the original, which had an octal preamp, alnico speaker, and tube rectifier... along with a Champ tonestack. It was basically a little tweed monster BEFORE the little tweed Champ was ever introduced. All the modding the community did to the reissue was to try to get it to sound more like the original.
Video: 3 Champion 600s: a stock reissue, a Mercury Magnetics modded reissue (sounds awful, imo), and the original (which sounds amazing). Of course, this isn't for clean tones: in this video, they are all cranked.
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I'd say any solid state jazz oriented combo, Or a Fender Princeton, maybe Deluxe Reverb
If you have money, a Carr Sportsman is great
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Cool! Yes I knew that the Champion 600 reissue circuit resembles the 60's blackface era circuit and not the 5f1 Champ or the original version circuit from the early 50's. Originally Posted by ruger9
I have seen that testing video before (it's impressive) and was looking at all the other YouTube videos people have posted of their modified reissue Champion 600's and I decided the extra gain and overdrive is not for me. Oddly enough I prefer the stock settings but I think the best thing done to it was replace the cheap stock tubes with the better aftermarket ones. When I got this little amp home I wasn't expecting much and was expecting less head room than it has. I was very pleasantly surprised! Now some folks replace the speaker with a Weber 6 and other folks say the stock Fender speaker is fine after it's broken in. I have no issues with it as it is. My motto is: "If it's not broken don't fix it".
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The old champion 600 sounds nice indeed!
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Great sounding amps! I think three or four of each would make a great-sounding backline! Originally Posted by ruger9
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You're absolutely right in my book: I don't buy gear online at all. Parts, sure, but not gear. I gotta play it first. Originally Posted by ruger9
If I don't like what I'm playing I don't buy it. I need to know I like it before I part with the piasters. If I decide to mod it later, well, that's just fun-and-games -- I still know I like the amp as-is. Only rarely modded anything beyond twisting the knobs ... it works for me.
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Most 5 Watt tube amps sounds basically good, there’s some kind of magic in those small tube amps- guess why they’re used by so many of the greats! Maybe it‘s the perfect combination of things? The simple circuit? I don‘t know, but small amps are much more responsive and dynamic compared to bigger ones.
Here‘s my Swart STR Tremolo- a high priced boutique 5 watter. Fantastic amp. But does it sound significantly better versus my Laney Cub8? The answer is honestly: NO.Last edited by Stefan Eff; 07-19-2020 at 03:26 AM.
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Well, Stefan the video reviewing the three champions shows the significant differences between 5 watt amps from the same producer. It’s hard to tell from a video, but i don’t like ‘em all three.
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...three different amps, ro be exactly. You can‘t compare the modern version with the old original. And they‘re cranked up. I bet they sound great if the guitars volume would be turned down to play at their sweet spot. Originally Posted by Marcel_A
Something I can also highly recommend with the cub8, at least with a good speaker. The stock speaker sounds more or less linear, boxy and british, but you‘ve already found your amp.Last edited by Stefan Eff; 07-19-2020 at 03:31 PM.
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It really depends for me. I've owned, I dunno, four or five 10w-watt and under amps. One was pretty useless -- weak, shallow cleans and nasty dirt. Another, an old Harmony 303A, couldn't distort on its own to save its life, and I was a young metalhead. I wish I still had it, because the cleans, even at volume, were really clean for a small (~3w) amp, Had a little 5w Crate tuber that was great for slide, but nasally otherwise. Last smallbox I've owned was an Epi VJ head. Weak cleans and dirt, but I found a cool usable sound by cranking the amp and dialing back guitar-volume, through a 12" cab. Originally Posted by Stefan Eff
I guess my bias towards bigger glass and paper is obvious, but I like having more headroom than the average 1x10"/ 1x 6V6 can deliver, IMO, YMMV, apply topically where needed.
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Like most guitars most tube amps need a little modification. Different tubes and/or speakers can do wonders on amps. That‘s why e.g. Swart offers different speaker options or in the STR-Tremolo the 6V6 OR 6L6 option. Originally Posted by Thumpalumpacus
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Excellent point. Over the years I've swapped speakers in/out and rolled a variety of tubes in order to get the most out of my (5 - 40 watt) amps. Also, I connect them to a variety of extension speaker cabs for added fun. Originally Posted by Stefan Eff
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If it's necessary to modify every amp by changing tubes and speakers, or other components, then those amps aren't that good, IMO. I don't want to have to spend the time and money to get an acceptable sound. I have amps that sound good out of the box, so I'll leave the tube stuff for those who have nothing better to do than experiment with them. I prefer to just sit down and play.
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Oh I disagree. If you have something that's configured for a blues player, for instance, it could be tweaked to work better for a jazzer.
Small amps are generally considered a recording amps by most players, so they want to have them break up a little early to get that classic crunch. Some players will like that. However you can get more clean headroom if you swap the speaker out for something more efficient; probably better if you are playing complex chords and don't need filthy gain. It takes a few minutes and not much money.
So I think you'd be daft not to at least consider a speaker swap if you like the amp but want to enhance some quality of it (such as clean headroom so you can use it for jazz gigs, for example). It doesn't make it a bad amp.
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Well, there's tweaking then there's trying to change something into something it's not. Much like an acoustic guitar, you better like it right out of the box, because tweaking it- different strings, different nut/saddle material, perhaps even artificial aging with an electronic device- isn't going to change it much.... if you LIKE it, these things could (or not) help you like it MORE. But it's not going to make a guitar that you DONT LIKE (out of the box) into one you do. Same applies to all gear, imo. I've done my share of tweaking over the years... and a speaker is the #1 biggest change you can make to an amp, far greater than tubes. But I still say it's not going to make an amp that instantly repels you (like the Laney Cub 8 being discussed), a speaker or a tube change won't make it an amp you love. Originally Posted by christianm77
And I've gone to the extreme of this: I took a Champion 600 reissue, lifted the tone stack (to remove it's blackface tonal qualities), put in a much lower-gain tube in the preamp (because lifting the tone stack caused a great gain increase), put in an NOS 6V6, and a hemp cone 8" speaker. All in an attempt to make it sound like the original C600. In the end, it was a cool little amp... but I should have been searching for an original C600. Point being, if you love tweaking for tweaking's sake, have at it! But personally, I wouldn't waste my time... if an amp sounds BAD (not "I like it, but..." it sounds BAD to you) out of the box, put it back in the box. LOL
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