Anyone own a Fender Champion 600 Reissue?

Hey Guys,

I've been looking for a neat little 5W tube amp for recording. I've thought of DIY but in all honesty there is no way I can build one for the price of one of these newer Fender or the Epiphone Valve Jnr's amps, easier to buy a mod than start from scratch.

I've read the Epi's are a HUM monsters with some serious work needed and the Fender looks cooler and for $199.00 you can't go wrong!



Am interested to see what users may think of them sadly can't try one here as they are not in the country yet :sad:

Also anyone know if they are US built? I get the impression they are, but ii doesn't say and would also be interested to know if they went with a PCB or point to point, I'm guessing PCB as I don't see how they could do it for that price point to point.

Cheers

Matt

[quote author="matta"]Hey Guys,

I've been looking for a neat little 5W tube amp for recording. I've thought of DIY but in all honesty there is no way I can build one for the price of one of these newer Fender or the Epiphone Valve Jnr's amps, easier to buy a mod than start from scratch.

I've read the Epi's are a HUM monsters with some serious work needed and the Fender looks cooler and for $199.00 you can't go wrong!



[/quote]

I second that MATT,

just saw this in the new Sweetwater mag too, I was like SH*T for that price you could scrap most of the parts and use for a nice recording cab, maybe use the iron and box?!?!!! hmmmm...

I think i'm still gonna continue the building of my single-ended 6V6 tube amp, maybe i'll just build the head, and see if I can drive it with this mini......





~J~

Matt,

From what I have read, the first VJrs had a hum issue. The head version does not. I'm not sure if they fixed it on the combo yet, but it is easy to fix. Its just cutting the heater traces on the PCB and feeding them via twisted pair wire. Some say convert to DC heaters, but I don't think that kills it completely.

The VJr head version looks cooler...



Lots of mods on the 'net from tone controls to power soaks for this amp.

PTmix,

Uh... that schematic looks like push-pull to me.

No, it's parallel single-ended. It's just drawn in a way that makes it look p-p at first glance.

I'd consider adding a switch to ground the grid of one of the output tubes, a "lower volume" option.

I'd also do the cathode bypass switching differently. As shown, it doubles as a "thump" switch.

I'm not sure what's the point of the dual rectifiers. A single 5Y3 would do the job.

That little Fender looks fun. If it were about $100, I'd be all over it.

Dave,

Thanks for clarifying. I guess it would have been push pull drive if the 220k were at the top of the 1.5k.

Could you make it thump less by bypassing the switch with a 100k resistor maybe?


Now I want to buy the Epi extension cab and turn intp a combo amp. That is sah-weet!

Peace!

That would be great to use with my homemade 2-watt amp head. I just wish it were 8 ohms... and cheaper!