Fender Champ 12

okay this is a basic tube amp, great for anyone wanting to upgrade from a solid state amp, like myself. my footswitch is wired into the back of the amp, can't remove which doesn't really matter, and i like the mid boost pull know, i'm not really sure what the rca plugs on the front are for.

bought this from a private owner, it seemed a litle quiet on both channels and i was a little unsure, but i use a compressor and a tube screamer so now volume and distortion are not a problem, i would have to recommend an overdrive for better distortion at low volume, but this is my first tube amp, so i'm not complaining, i love it

just got it, only has 2 preamp and 1 power amp tubes so not too much worry about that.we'll see.

fender's website is not good for anything that is not currently in production, it's hard to find info from THEM about older out of production amps.

a 175 dollar tube amp. that's all i can say, i mean i don't think there are enough good sounding smaller tube amps out there.by the way mine is in a red cabinet with black knobs, kind of cool.

Late '80s or early '90s manufacture. This amp really shines at heavy blues and rock. It has a clean channel, but without the overdrive on it doesn't have the oomph to serve as more than a practice amp. This amp has served me well over the past ten years... both in small clubs and as a recording amp.

As I said before, this amp works best for heavy blues and rock. I mostly play a strat through it, though the single-coils can only drive it to moderate volumes (club-wise). Humbuckers allow it to get very loud and very dirty. Overall, the amp is best for lead tones... rhythms tend to be a bit muddy at higher volume levels. For big gigs, I have occasionally run it in tandem with my Super Reverb... only kicking the champ in to fatten up leads. You can hear this amp on various tunes at http://mp3.com/defenders (try "Why Should I Think That")and http://mp3.com/jonathanreynolds ("STR").

Industructo. Years of gigging and nothing has been required aside from re-tubing.

Never had to ask.

This amp is a fine example of something that is a sum of more than it's parts. It isn't terribly versitile, but it works so darn well in a few places that I would hate to do without it. As small combos go, I think it is about as fine an amp as many snooty "boutique" models.

This is a late-80s/early 90s all tube 12 watt combo w/ 10" speaker, with footswitchable channels, 2 EQ bands with a mid boost, and reverb; all in all a very basic combo, which happens to be what I go for. This one isn't perfect, but it gets the job done...

I mostly run my ES-335 copy through this one; I find that my Strat's stock Fender single coils don't give it enough punch on clean channel. Really, the only thing I don't like about this amp is how relatively soft the clean channel is compared to the drive; the closest I get to equal volumes is with the clean volume on 10 and the drive and its volume on about 1 and 2 respectively. Any drive setting over 1 on this amp is pretty harsh in my book too, btw, at ANY volume, and there is some degree of noise when you're on the drive. So I virtually don't use the overdrive on this amp, and I would recommend anyone who buys one get a good OD stompbox if you want drive with any kind of finesse. Otherwise it's a very quiet clean amp, I've used it for blues, country, moderate rock, and reggae and it really gets that Fender sparkling clean sound going.

I haven't had it long, but it hasn't given me any problems so far. No scratchy pots, no noisy or unreliable jacks, including the line out, and I know I'm at least the third owner.

Never dealt with Fender CS, and the warrantee on this has probably been expired for years anyway.

Overall, I'm not looking for much this amp doesn't have. If it was stolen I'd buy another Fender tube combo for sure, but I think I'd move up to someting in the 30-40 watt range. But then I play in a 5 piece band, which can have as many as 3 guitars going on certain songs; for the studio, or in a small group where I was the only electric guitar player, this would be all the amp I'd ever need, plus some sort of gain booster or OD box.

As above. Many useful features.

Excellent clean sound - IMO far superior to many of the new low-wattage Class A combos (eg. Gibson GA15, Laney LC15, Trace Elliot Velocette). Gain channel is useful, however lacking bottom end. Has a raw and grainy overdrive which can be a bit harsh on high treble settings. Nice musical distortion overall, lots of harmonics, but limited in its use - probably better suited to texas style blues. Reverb is pretty weak, but useable.

No probs as yet - not bad so far for a 15 y.o. amp.

Never dealt with the company.

Great value for money. Packs a lot of punch with gig-able volume levels. An ideal recording amp.

This amp is probably from the late 80's. Bought second hand in Sweden six years ago for about 250 dollars, or 2500 swedish crowns.
I mainly use it for playing amplified harmonica, but I believe that my opinion about how to get a good harmonica sound out of it would work also for guitar players. (See the "Sound" section below).
I like the features the Champ 12 provides. Especially the line out and the headphone jack. Line out gives a lot of opportunities to use the Champ 12 as a pre-amp with a bigger gigging amp, such as a Bassman RI, or for just lining the amp into the house PA, not having to care about an extra mic for the amp.
What I really miss is a speaker-out jack, so it would be easy to try different speaker cabs. I will probably have one mounted some day.
The tone controls are quite OK, i believe. The solid state reverb is the major disadvantage of this amp. But tere are a lot of ways to get around it. My solution is spelled Dan-Echo.

I was never satisfied with how the amp sounded, until I got into some tube swapping...
Now I know that there is a lot more tone to squeeze out of this baby than you are able to do with the stock Fender tubes. The trick that worked for me was to swap the pre-amp tubes for better stuff, preferably some really good vintage tubes.
Today I use old Telefunken tubes from the 50`s. For occasional guitar-use I put in two Telefunken ECC 83-tubes in the pre-amp stage (ECC 83 is the old european tube number for 12AX7).
When playing harp I swap the first ECC 83 in the signal line for a tube with less gain, mainly to reduce the risk of feedback from the harp microphone. For the moment I use a Sylvania 12AT7.
Telefunken tubes make any amp sing with the right tone, I believe. The problem is they are hard to get and a bit expensive. But I believe that the 90 dollars you might have to pay for a pair of Telefunken tubes really could be the kick your Champ 12 needs. And if you like the amp for its other features - why not.
Now I got a really fat harp tone, at least for this size of cabinet, and a much better blues tone for guitar out of the amp.
Right now I would like to find a used or NOS RCA Blackplate 6L6GC tube (stock in many 60's Fenders) for the power-amp stage, but then we're talking hundreds of bucks, and I believe it's a real hard to get-item here in Sweden.
I would also like to try out the advantages with a bigger speaker cab, preferably a 4X10 or 4X8 cab, to get more bottom for the harp sound.

I have had some hum problem and a broken input jack, but nothing that my friend, an at-home amp-tech down the street, couldn't fix for 10 bucks...
The Champ 12 has never let me down on a gig so far. Of course the snake-skin toolex doesn't look brand new anymore, but this is a blues amp, so what...

I've never dealt with Fender or their retail organisation in Sweden.
My amp-tech friend down the street fixes what's needed. And he's got a Fender Champ 12 of his own, too, actually one of the very few amps of this type I've seen in Sweden except for my own.

Been playing the amp for six years, but first after some tube swapping got really satisfied.
If it got lost I would try to find another one, or maybe take a step up in size/wattage. But on the other hand, the size and versatility of the Champ 12 is real advantages.

red knob Champ 12 (late 80s to early 90s model)
12 watts
smallest amp with a 12" speaker I've seen
louder than I thought a champ would be (particularly on lead channel)
clean channel only loud enough for home practice I would think
has headphone jack and line out

tele and strat sound terrific in clean channel
I've had maybe 10 different amps in the past and this definately one of the best sounding in my book. Very full with plenty of low end on the clean channel. Less lows on the overdrive. Much warmer and fuller than I thought a Champ could be. I've owned the Blues Jr and was never happy with that honkey midrangey skanky sound. This instantly sounds better to me. Its the larger power tube I think mainly. The clean channel on 10 hardly breaks up with a Tele bridge pickup. Got some Santana-ish tone out of the overdrive channel using humbuckers. Seems versatile to me. Footswitch makes it pretty easy to switch channels without too much jiggering with the knobs.

just got it - but its 10 years old and doesn't have any noticeable probs.

I think I may have paid too much at $300 from reading the other reviews but I'm not unhappy since it sounds so good. This is a keeper and I'm looking for another one now.

killer small all tube amp with 2 channels, outs, and it's so light you can take it amywhere...

you want to sound like Nirvana? mike this baby up on ten. so many big records use small tube amps in the studio cranked. ac 15, boogie 22, CHAMP 12 etc. just because you have a marshall stack doesn't mean it's the thing to use for everything.

never had a problem

never had a problem, so i'm giving them an average grade.

if you have big rigs, this is the one to have for that small tube rig you can crank up without fear. great tube compression, scary versatility, and wighs next to nothing. GET ONE.

12 Watt, (well, rated at 12), all tube combo, single channel with switchable overdrive, single 12 inch combo.

This amp was a big disappointment for a fender tube amp, useless distortion, well, I should say one sound and not a very good one, very loose and way to boomy a bass, no shimmering highs, not a good clean amp either, but i guess for a cheap tube amp I shouldn't be to picky, but then this has none of the sounds of the old champs which were also cheap tube amps...lol The reverb was also very dry and un-inspiring.

never had a problem

Fender? forget it!

Save your money and find a better amp if you really want a fender, otherwise there are plenty of other brands out there that you can pick up for the same used price that would put this amp to shame, but then that wouldn't take much, I dumped this amp as soon as I could! the only reason I give it a 3 is because it was reliable.

Made in 1989 in Mexico; I begun using it only in 2000
as I didn't play in a band in the meantime.

It was designed by Rivera and has ALL the right features:
buy one if you find it !

I bought NEW tubes - Groove and Sovtek and it sounds INCREDIBLE.

It sings like Santana or gives me bluesy tone like SRV
or whatever you like except metal-trash. It works great
with LesPaul and any great Strat and I use them all ...

I keep 10 for hand-made $2000 amps and more versatile designs
like Mesa-combos so only 9 - but it's really 10 for the price.

No problem - seems sturdy.

Don't know - don't need it.

10 for the price: I paid roughly $400 in England in 1990
and it's BETTER than present Blues Jr. that everybody raves about.
It's Rivera amp for the price of Pro Jr.

Buy one if you find it somewhere ...