CeriaTone BF Champ

It is a champ... volume, bass, and treble. One channel. but what more do you need?

I play it in church and it is an amazing clean platform. It has wonderful headroom and with the single coils doesn't realy break up even at 10. Add pedals and you can do anything at a reasonable volume. For dirt, I have an HBE Power Screamer and an Analogman KOT on my board... with the variety of dirt those pedals can give me, I have everything right there.

I play a partscaster with a humbucker in the bridge and 2 single coils with a Schaller Megaswitch which gives me 4 settings that are humbucking. We play everything except metal - funk, blues, R&B, arena rock, emo, etc., even a touch of disco at times. with the right pedals, this little amp does it all.

I do have it in a larger cab with a Weber Blue Dog 12' speaker which gives me a bit more bottom end and a lot more volume than a stock Champ 8.

The simplicity allows experimentation with different tubes without breaking the bank. I do wish mine would allow the use of something other than the 6V6 as the power tube, but even with them there is enough variation to get a lot of colors from the amp. I wouldn't mind having a larger power tube to give me a little more power but that is a very, very small complaint.

I love my champ!

The only thing I would worry about are my solder joints and the expected fragility of tubes. It is a simple design with high quality parts. If you get one of Nik's completed amps, it would be a tank.

Nik is great. I think mine was the first BF champ board they produced and he was so helpful and so accommodating. I would not hesitate to purchase another amp from him. I highly, highly recommend this company.

If it was stolen, I would certainly talk to Nik first. I would likely go with a complete amp from him. If I'm ever in a situation where I need a larger amp again, I will e-mail him first.

For a lower volume situation where a clean platform is required that works great with pedals, you can't beat this little champ clone.

Completely hand built chassis with the AA764 circuit of the Fender Champ of Black face era head format.
6 watt class A single ended. Preamp one 12AX7 JJ , rectifier one 5Y3GT Sovtec and power 6V6 GT Electro Harmonix. 2 inputs (high and low), bass and treble pots and volume in the front and 4, 8 and 16 ohm selector and 2 output jacks in the back side.
This is a tube amp, only a simple tube amp.
The amp is used mainly at home, the volume is suficient to be hated by the neighbors.
Price 273 $ + 53 $ transp + 60$ import taxes

The amp connected to a cabinet with one Celestion Vintage 30, delivers a clean and warm tone with great volume (more than expected).
Included with high volume delivers clean sound, no distortion.
I will check if conecting an overdrive pedal I can achieve an warm distortion that I miss.
It is perfect for my jazzy Yamaha AEX1500 but a little bit more overdrive is expected when I connect my Gibson Les Paul Studio.

My experience with this amp is only 3 month long but due the simplicity of the circuit, the acurate job and , aparently, the quality of the components, I think it will be a reliable and durable amp.

The amp was bought via internet and the web of the company is not very complete, the caracteristics of the different models are not explained.
The delivery time was not clearly comunicated before the order(assembly + transport near 2 month). But all the questions were answered by email inmediately and the support and interest shown by Ceriatone can be qualified as good.

My experience is only about 2 years and this is my first tube amp, really the tube sound is magic... I like very much the tone, round and lighly compressed. I miss a little bit of overdrive with the volume at maximum.
Between the available amps around 5 watts and acceptable cost,I chosed this amp due to traditional construction without printed board, good components and sound (if the circuit is clone of the Fender Champ BF the sound would be clone, or not?)