Product: CeriaTone Champ 5F1
Price Paid: CDN $ including shipping & customs 400
Submitted
09/02/2008
at
09:34pm
by
gargloic
Email: gargloic<at>gmail dot com
Features
:
8
5 or 6 ? watts, tube amp, 50's Fender Champ clone. It came as only a chassis with components installed inside, no cabinet or speaker. One drawback though, chassis is generic and has many holes on faceplate that are not used on this model so it is kind of ugly.
Amp was made for me early 2007. This is a clone of an old amp so it has exactly the same features as the original so... No channel switching, tremolo, tone or whatever.
I don't play live with it, only practicing twice a month and it is loud enough to compete with the rest of the band without problems.
I am using one or two Weber alnico sig 10 8ohms.
Sound Quality
:
10
I was using a Peavey strat copy with a dimarzio Tone Zone and it sounds great with it distorded but not that much clean. I bought a new 2008 Fender American Standard with maple neck and now the clean is absolutely gorgeous (so it the crunch anyway).
Music style goes from Blues to Hard rock and it is perfect for that.
Reliability
:
9
I have had this amp for one and a half year and it works flawlessly since. Never gig without a backup !
It is a tube amp so there is always a risk of failure, but I don't worry it is top notch built.
Customer Support
:
10
Nik answers all e-mail incredibly fast, any kind of question. No warranty and I don't feel it needs one.
Overall Rating
:
9
I have been playing for 28 years. Own a few more Vintage tube amps, cheapos ones but Vintage anyway.
If stolen, I would pursue that bastard and make him eat his shoes and I would get a new one.
Love the sound, love the sound, love the sound !
I rate it at 9 because there is surely a better amp out there, but I haven't found it !
Product: CeriaTone Champ 5F1
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
08/08/2006
at
11:28am
by
A Hall
Features
:
9
Bought as a kit, mine is actually a 5E1 rather than 5F1 clone, the only difference is that in the 5F1 psu a choke was replaced with a resistor. I bought a suitable choke from Nik at Ceriatone and had it shipped with my kit.
Other points are that the power transformer has multi voltage taps (120, 220 and 240v) so it will work in all countries (well, all with an electricity supply anyway!)
Also, output transformer has taps for 4, 8 and 16 ohms and an impedance selector switch is included in the kit.
So, it has many more features than the original 50 year old Champ 5E1, so I'll give it 9
Sound Quality
:
10
Clean and loud! If you think a 5 watt amp is small then try it through a 4 x 12 cabinet with efficient speakers, when it's dimed I have to use a hot plate attenuator or the neighbours start banging on the walls :-0
The clean sound is very transparent, not too surprising as there are so few components in the signal path. Cranked sound is typical fender tweed, sweet class A distortion.
Reliability
:
No Opinion
It is a kit and I built it myself, if there's a problem then its probably down to me. There are so few parts and its such a tried and tested design that reliability shouldn't be a problem. Very easy to repair if it ever did go south......
Customer Support
:
10
Yes, excellent service from Nik at Ceriatone, every email is promply answered and he's a "can do" sort of guy.
Overall Rating
:
9
Very easy kit to build, but if you are an absolute beginner you will need to do some homework as there are no instructions supplied with it and a certain level of knowledge is assumed.
A very nice quality amp that nails the original 5E1 tweed champ sound.
