Fender Champ 12

I own two of these. I think they are both from late 80s or so. The amp is good for what I use it for. I play rock mostly. It has a clean channel and an overdrive channe. There is a headphone jack, but no effects loop. I use the amp in my apartment and at small jams with frineds. This amp has plenty of power. It uses a 6L6GC or a 5881 output tube and two preamp tubes. This amp suits me fine, and I am shocked at the people that put this amp down. I suspect the main problem with these people is that they don't know how to play a guitar and don't know how to dial in the sounds they desire out of an amp.

I play mostly classic rock. I use several guitars through this amp: a '58 Les Paul Reissue and a couple of American-made Stratocasters. The amp hums a bit, but if you turn off televisions, computers, etc. in the room then it is DEAD QUIET. I can get a nice clean through the clean channel, the reverb sounds okay (not terrible as some of these "experts" have claimed), and the dirty channel gets very crunchy depending on how much gain you dial in. My biggest complaint with the sound, is that the master volume knob is VERY touchy. I have heard that a capacitor or resistor can be replaced to fix this. The amp goes from being sort of a whisper, to blaring loud at just a small bump of the master volume knob.

I have not tried to distort the clean channel at high volume. I would assume it would not get too crunchy since the output tube is a 6L6/5881 (known for headroom). The distortion can be a little brutal, but the key is to turn down the gain and instead use an overdrive pedal to get gain or distortion. This makes this little amp sound God-like.

For Zeppelin/Jimmy Page tones: Les Paul + Boss Super Overdrive + Fender Champ 12 on dirty channel with Gain knob turned below "1".

For Hendrix tones: Fender Strat + Thomas Organ Vox Wah + Overdrive or Fuzz pedal + Fender Champ 12 on dirty channel with Gain knob turned below "1".

*Note: Without the use of effects, the amp still sounds great, by dialing in a little bit of gain, but not too much. The clean channel is nice also. I believe Strats/Teles sound best through the amp when played without effects.

Yes, the amp is reliable. I have two of them and neither one have EVER broken down on me. I would probably use a backup at a gig, but that is true for ANY amp.

Never had to deal with Fender support.

I have been playing for 25 years. I own Gibson Les Pauls, SGs, Fender Strats, and Fender Telecasters. I own four or five vintage Marshall Super Leads ( a couple of plexis), a Marshall Major, a 1965 Fender Blackface Bassman, a Soldano Hot Rod 50, a Marshall 1959SLP reissue (1993).

If either of these amps were stolen, I would try to get another one (or two). These are great little amps that can fit in the trunk with a guitar and a couple of effects and not take up much space. I love this amp because it is small and easy to tote as well as being quick to set up (compared to heads and speaker cabinets).

I have been playing rock 'n roll for a LONG time. I laugh at these people that give this amp below an "8". My feeling is they just don't know how to operate a guitar and amplifier.

Of course, this amp is NOT perfect, but what amp is?. It takes some dialing in and some adjustments to the volume and tone knobs of the guitar to dial in the right sound. But this is true for ALL amplifiers and guitars. I own some of the finest amps ever made and this amp sounds just as good as any amp I own if dialed in correctly. Buy one of these if you can. This amp makes an excellent and affordable tube amp for the beginning guitarist, the professional guitarist, and all guitarists in between.

I think its an 89 I got it off of E-bay, man their sure has been a lot of writing about this little amp here I read about one with 2-12s and one with a switch for the drive on the front and a few other features I sure can't find on mine lol.I got a treble with a pull mid boost a bass and volume then gain and volume for the drive channel and a reverb knob.High and low inputs I haven't played much in the low plug 1 volt out and I love the headphone feature for late night ,which brings me to my rating of a real bedroom amp besides the headphones you can play the clean channel wide open in a room like 12X 12 and it is great its not a real loud amp in the clean channel. I wish it had a standby switch other than that it has what I need in a bedroom amp.

I have a Les Paul Standard,a ES-135 both with classic 57s and a 1962 reissue strat they all sound pretty good in this fender, but like everyone else says the reverb is weak.Mine don't make too much noise even on the drive channel but I usually play the gain down low anyhow. The clean channel stays clean wide open you really gotta play hard ta get it ta break up and then it won't be breakin up much but it is sweet up their like that O yeah.Now in the drive channel their is some bad ass distortion I been fooling round changing the preamp tubes and it is paying off big time I have a 12at7 closest to the power tube and a 12au7 over next to the box side and it sounds way better than those fender from China 12ax7s sounded.

Built like a tank seems tuff Enuff I've had it a while a not a bit of trouble so far.

ver even tried ta talk to anyone at Fender so I don't know.

Man I'm 50 so I been at it a while I think this one is great for practice, in the bedroom ,it don't have enough clean volume ta be doing gigs ,I don't think unless ya mike it up of course.As I said above I like the headphone out and wish it had a standby other than that for practice if your a tube man its great .I've compared it to all kinds of small tube amps its not as loud as most the others fender blues and pro jrs.peavey classic 20 and 30 crate vintage club 2112r gibson goldtone laney lc15r,u know the ones under 5 bills cept for the goldtone the gibson and classic 30 have way more volume the others have more too but those two are louder by far, but the distortion in this one is out there all by its self its pretty harsh but not too bad, the knobs are sensitive just play with it a while and you'll find a sweet spot. I like this one hell for the money you will not beat, it I'm thinking about instaling some of those torres mods, we'll see ya'll later .

Listed ad nauseum in the posts below. It would be cool if it had a power amp in jack.

I picked this amp up used for $40 dollars. It suffered from the usual bad input jack problem. I had found online the Torres Engineering mods for this amp right before I found this deal, so I went for it thinking I could have a fun electronics project over the 4th of July weekend.

I ordered all 4 Torres mods. It took a little bit of time, but if you are good building things its not too hard. Each of the mods improved the amp. The adjustable bias mod is very cool. It allows you to tweak the voltage to the power tube to get it running just where you want it. I installed female rca jacks instead of the test points that came with the kit though. this allows an easier bias adjustment because i attach the test meter via two alligator clip test wires with male rca ends soldered to the other end. this way you don't have to hold the meter leads in the test points while adjusting the bias potentiometer. Hands free!!! tre cool. I also added a 1/4" speaker jack so I can plug the amp into different cabs & i installed a 1/4" footswitch jack so i could axe the broken stock footswitch and use a mesa boogie type instead.

The clean channel improved dramatically. tons more low end, and tone-a-licious. The lead channel still sounds unusable to me, but I use my overdrive pedals for that anyway.

Lastly, I replaced the speaker with a weber signature 12.

Now this is a great, small and portable 12" combo amp that I can get great tone out of for small jams, recording, and quieter gigs.

Its not that loud on the clean channel though, so it won't compete with a drummer who hits hard.

so far so good

well, fender wouldn't touch it now I'm sure since I've modded the crap out her...

All told it ran me 160 bucks to get it where it is today, and thats not bad for an all tube 12" speaker combo with great tone.

Made sometime in the late 1980's. It was discontinued years ago I suspect.
It is a straight tube amp, no effects other than a lead channel and reverb.
It could do with an effects loop.
THIS IS NOT A BEDROOM PRACTICE AMP!!!
I used it in my bedroom. It has WAY TOO MUCH power for a bedroom. It is really for band practices or playing small halls. It can compete and overwhelm an unmiked drummer when it is cranked.

I used a late '80's Fender Jap Strat.
There is a noticeable hum using my guitar with the amp volume turned up.
This amp doesn't really make much of a good sound, however you use it. Very disappointing. I expected a Fender twin type sound from this - and I got nothing like it.
The distorted sound lacks warmth. A tube amp should sound better than this. I have heard modern solidstate amps thta sound much better than this amp.
The clean sound is undistinguished. At high volumes it does start distorting a little bit.

Always worked for me - no problems.

N/A.

I have been playing for 18 years.
I would not buy this again - there are way better amps out there now. Trust me.

This amp is WAY TOO LOUD for home practice use. To get the tubes warmed up you will be creating such a noise that the neighbours will be hammering on the walls and the police kicking your door down.
I remember once I was playing with my window open in summer and people 100 yards away were commenting on it. It is that loud. If you want a practice amp - look elsewhere.

There is not much difference volume wise between this and a 50 watt Fender tube amp - believe me. This could cause problems for a drummer when it is cranked up.

This amp is HEAVY - I would consider something else for gigging. There are better, lighter amps from Marshall and Fender that use solidstate technology.

This amp is old hat, a mediocre product and was a dissapoint to me. Take my advice and look elsewhere.
A good amp should encourage you to play - this one does not.

Not sure what age the amp is. Quite versatile with clean and OD channels. Class A (single tube) output.

I did the Torres mod on mine so it is not really stock now.

I record with it mostly and it is obviously more than loud enough for that.

It is not as transparent as some push-pull design Fenders but has a great creamy midrange which is hard to beat.

Suits any style except extreme metal maybe (and then with the right pedal, who knows). Not very noisy. No hum problems.

The gain and overdrive controls are over sensitive - some people change them for different pots, I just adjust them carefully in the lower end of the range usually. Works for me.

Pre-Torres it was maybe a 7 or 8, post-Torres clean is a 10 and overdrive is an 8. The mod adds bass and opens up the sound in the top end too - quite a remarkable difference.

Its a real nice little amp - records beautifully.

Well enough made, fairly easy to work on. Only 3 tubes so cheap to swap. Never failed me so far.

These amps really need the Torres mod to bring out the rich sounds they are capable of. I don't much care for the reverb but its OK at lower settings. The OD is pretty good, just a bit tricky to set up but once you have it set it is a nice thing to have.

Nice amp.

Made sometime between 1987=1992. I wanted a low power tube amp with a different sound then the Pro Junior and I did not want to spend the kind of money a Victoria, Bad Cat or Dr. Z would set me back. I found the Champ 12 on Ebay. The high and low inputs are quite nice for getting a good sound out of either a single coil or humbucker.

I have a Telecaster with Lindy Fralin Blues Specials, a Samick Ultramatic with a Seymour Duncan Jazz in the neck and Pearly Gates in the bridge, a Les Paul Melody Maker with a Lindy Fralin 5% overwound P90 and a Hamer Echotone with Seymour Duncan 59s. All of the guitars sound very good through this amplifier. The level on input 2 makes the humbuckers much warmer. The Champ 12 only sounded OK as received. The clean channel sounded pretty good, but the distortion channel was all or nothing, and pretty harsh. It exihibits none of the aforemention hum problems. The amp also had a nasty rattle. The original owner had performed the Torres tone modification, I added the Switchcraft jack modification, Torres potentiometer modification, Torres bias kit, secured the front baffle, change the speaker to an alnico Jensen and replaced the tubes with a Electo Harmonix 12AX7EH, Sovtek 5751 and Groove Tube 6L6R2. After spending $250, the rattle is gone and the sound vastly improved. The Jenson seems to have a fuller sound with better tone than the stock speaker. The clean channel sounds fantastic at any setting and does not distort at volume. The dirty channel has a full range of adjustment. The potentiometer and 5751 seem to have brought the dirty channel to a manageable gain level. The dirty channel is still higher gain than the tone I would prefer for blues and jazz comping. If you are into metal or hair band music, the dirty channel is probably OK for you. The reverb seems useless. I only give it an 8. 10 for the clean channel and 6 for the dirty channel and reverb.

No issue. I have only had the amp for a few weeks, but do not have any reliability concerns.

No dealings with Fender. I have a local guy who does right by me.

I have only been playing a few years. I like the sound of the Champ 12 better than my Pro Junior, which is too bright. I doubt I would replace it if it were stolen. I would probably break down and get the Victoria 5112. So far, I have not felt the need to put any pedals in front of the Champ 12. Unlike the Pro Junior which is shrill without some signal processing out front. Overall, ~$500 for a class A tone machine is not too bad. The reverb is disappointing and hopefully fixable with another reverb tank and the dirty channel is not as rich as some of the botique amps.

sometime between 1987 and 1992 from what I understand. 2 channels, hardwired footswitch, reverb, cool features for teaching loud enough to play over drums.

It sounds good clean, there is a little signature in the sound that I do not really like, but it is an exceptional practice amp. Let me qualify that, the distortion sounded like a toy when I got it. I did the torres mod, changed pots for volume and gain on dirty channel (kit through torres engineering, and they included a capacitor to swick out for an "AC 30ish) tone) it is really goodsounding now. The distortion has a certain "Boogie" like tone that sounds like a quality 80's high gain amp. Before the mods it sounded like complete shit. Now it can be used and it actually sounds great. Ihave used it with humbuckers and my maple necked strat and tele. It sounds better than these off brand tube amps they are making today, and better than a hot rod series amp, but again, there is a certain quality to the sound... I plug in to my deluxe reverb and I say (ok, now that is a good sound) the champ 12 is a good sound, it is small and light and can handle rehearsal but is in no way the holy grail of amps. The reverb is a small cardboard tank inside the chasis, but does its thing a little when cranked, nothing like a classic fender on the reverb side.

It is a circuit board with plastic jacks, but sturdily designed. Whoever claimed Paul Rivera is associated with this amp, or that it is the same thing as a super champ should be punished. It is not either of those things, but it is pretty good.

This is not a point to point wired rivera amp, anyone who says it is is lying. If you do the mods, it sounds pretty good, yopu may even love it. It is probably worth owning (if you do the mods) for portability alone, and somebody will love the tone because it is high quality. Someone coming from a modeling amp or solid state may think they found it, and a good player could get by on this thing all day (without the mods it is a toy), but I have high standards and I am disappointed. If it were stolen, it would be a good excuse to get a rivera clubster as my dual channel high gain lightweight combo, but for me really, if I could reconcile myself to the size and weight of my Deluxe reverb reissue, and use my fulltone 69 pedal for hard rock and roll, that would be all I need. I keep looking for a way to get smaller and get a good dirty channel. I ccame close with this, but at the expense of tremolo, and the sound is slightly off. Wish I could say different. Still a good amp, and probably great to ears with different tastes.

Two channels with shared EQ & Reverb, controls are:
Volume, Bass, Treble
Overdrive Gain, Overdrive Volume
Reverb

I think some of the reviews on this page must be written by people who want to sell their Champ 12. So be cautious when you read reviews that give perfect scores.

The Champ 12 is a low cost design, which has three major problems:

1. It has quite a bit of Hum. Some may say that single-ended amps hum. NOT TRUE - only poorly designed single-ended amps will hum. The Champ 12 has power supply issues which cause the hum. Some units are far worse than others. If your Champ 12 hums you can fix it. Have a tech replace C101, C102, & C103 with good quality 100uF to 220uF axial capacitors. This should cost about $15 in parts & 30 minutes of labor.

2. There is no low end, especially if you turn the volume up a bit. There are two reasons for this:
A) The second & third preamp tube stages are designed to boost the mids & highs, so the overdrive mode doesn't get all muddy. Unfortunately this compromises the clean sound. Sure there is a high cut circuit after the second stage that kicks in when the clean channel is selected, but it isn't enough to compensate.
B) The output transformer is too small & therefor has a poor low frequency response. Not to mention the rather high bias current that runs through the cathode, via the transformer B+.

3) The reverb is just terrible! To keep this amp cheap, Fender chose a tiny reverb spring bank (which is mounted within the chasis). Also, the reverb is run off of the speaker output. So the 6L6 is serving double duty: speaker drive & reverb drive. Furthermore, the reverb circuit forms a feedback loop from the power transformer output back to the grid of the power tube, which is on the verge of oscillation as you turn the reverb up. In summary it just plain sounds bad!

It's okay for low volume practice, unfortunately tubes sound best when they are pushed. It's too bad the amp was designed to do this.

Made in early 1960's in, um.. lets see.. oh here it is on logo, again on the front panel, at least three times on the back panel. Um..USA?
Made in the old Sunn Amp factory in Lake Oswego Oregon. The first amp designed by the "New" Fender Musical Instruments Corp after the takeover fron NBC. Red knobs mean that it was designed by Geraldo Rivera while he was at NBC in his spare time. 10" speaker was made by LBJ I think. I play disco and funk music and I love this amp. Two channels, headfone jack and tape unit built in so you can record directly from it. Two power tubes a preamp tube all made by Fender in Russia by Telefunky. I use this amp in church. Has 24 watts (12 x 2 tubes). Class "A" rating means this amp passed US government inpesctions. Hand wired blackface amp.

I can't see any name brand on my guitar. I bought it at the flea market for $20.00. I play all kinds of music, mostly Jimi Hendrix and SVR while home and Gospel when at church. The amp is very quiet, until you start playing, then it gets louder when you turn the third knob clockwise. The over drive channel breaks my ear drums and makes me want to pee my pants. The clean channel sounds good too and is very loud for an 18 watt amp.

I have had it since 1982 I think. I bought it in a pawn shop for $100.00. I kicked it and it still works. I dropped it down a flight of stairs and it just laughed at me. I finally killed it by using the tubes as target practice with my BB gun. Just kidding.

Fender has moved 7 times since 1982 and I believe the company is located somewhere is Asia now, perhaps Hong Kong or China, Maybe Sing a poor. The pawn shop refused to give me a warrenty. Can you believe that?

I have been playing since early childhood (16 or 17). I own a lot of Nike shoes, but just one guitar and amp, I am very poor. This and my bed are my only pieces of furniture. If this were stolen I would pray for forgiveness for the individual who stole it and God's Grace upon their life. I just hope they would get as much joy out of this amp as I have the last 22 years.

features already mentioned dozens of times in this page. The amp has enough features for me. It does everything I need it to do.

I use Strat Reissue and Tele 52 reissue. Occasionally PRS Custom. I have read many fors and againsts for this amp. I was not 100% happy with the amp as it was. I upgraded the valves. I fitted the Torres mod. Great improvement for little outlay. I then fitted the Torres bias kit, again big difference. When I fitted this kit I found out that my amp had been underbiased since the day I got it. So again it was not performing at its peak. Fitted a Celestion alnico blue, which I got for half normal price on ebay. I changed the values of the overdrive gain pot and the overdrive volume pot so there was not a jump in volume when switching in the overdrive. Right, after all this has been done, I swear you would be hard pushed to find a sweeter toned amp ANYWHERE. It is absolutely fabulous. Bear in mind these upgrades were cheap. The clean channel is perfect fender tone, sounds like a vintage deluxe!!! The overdrive channel in not harsh now, but sweet and warm. Great sound!!!!! The reverb is probably the only slight weakness but I won't punish the amp for this as I do not use a lot of reverb, but rely on the room. Torres would not put so much effort into this amp if it did not have potential for greatness. Ditch the speaker as well though. I totally agree with people who have wrote they are happy with the amp as it is, as it does have a decent sound, but bear in mind how much better it can be for little outlay. I use this amp all the time now on gigs. The celestion blue gives much more volume, but when I play bigger venues, I just turn it all the way up and mike it up MAGNIFICENT!!!!!!!!

Never had any problems since I bought the amp 10 years ago

Never had to deal with Fender, but I imagine it would be difficult to get personal attention for an old product from a manufacturer this large.

Great amp. It has some SLIGHT design flaws, but these are very easily rectified for little cash. I have heard Matchless, Badcat and all the rest of the so called Boutique brands. I would not swap this amp now for anything. It has THE sound.