Fender Vibro Champ XD

It has some neat sounds through the sound modelling. I basically wanted a 5W amp because my other amp is too loud to play at the sweet spot.

It's got the different models or whatever, and some decent effects.

It sounds nice, but it needs some bottom end. I've been playing through my HRD with a Marshall 4x10 cab and it sounds wonderful. It sounds a little shrill, but it is a small amp. Being upset with a small amp for not sounding like a big amp is like getting mad at your cat for not being a dog.

It has a line out, so I would like to hear with one of my cabs.

Just bought it today. Don't know. The guitar guy was cool.

Again, no opinion.

Warranty is Fender's standard 5-year thing with limitations.

Like I said before, I have a big tube amp, but it is too loud for practical use. I have been looking for a small tube amp for a long time. It doesn't have much bottom end, but that's to be expected.

Nice little amp. Fun.

very,very,very versatile,I use it as a practice amp. and this little baby has all the tone I was looking for and as a bonus a lot off effects too. Don't use a lot off the effects though but it is a nice feature for learning the different type off effects use by many pro players.

Great sounds are comming out the little amp and it has a very low hum thats normal for a tube amp it sounds and responses like a real 100 % tube amp and i love the sounds coming out off it. My favorite sound is nr. 2 a little (spring)revurb (2.2) and treble and bas set at 6. Gain on 6 and volume what ever is desired. The volume on my '82 strat is at 8 on de rear 2 pu's.
For this sound alone I would buy this amp for the mere 250 Euro's!!
But there are many many sweetspots still to discover.

have it for a couple off month's and it works great as to be expected for a Fender product.

not needed

this is real value for the money and it looks great too!!!!

Read the previous reviews for the features. Fender could have used the other triode of that 12AX7 for another pre-amp gain stage or better yet for real tube Tremolo. A mid EQ control would also have been nice...

I started playing guitar in 1963 and sometime over the years came to realize that sound is a very subjective thing. One man's meat being another man's poison type of thing. My early guitar influences were the Ventures, the Shadows and mid-60's Buddy Guy and B.B. King blues. Then in the 80's it was Mark Knopfler and Vince Gill with their guitar wizardry that impressed me no end. I've always loved the sound of a Strat or Les Paul played clean. When I got into a R&R band in the mid-60's, I bought a Burns Nu-Sonic guitar and a Harmony model 403 tube amp. Later, traded that in for a '63 Fender Bandmaster with twin 12 cab. Over the years, played through a lot of amps including Peavey Bandit, Studio Chorus and Roland Jazz Chorus SS amps. After I quit playing professionally in 1995, got back into small tube amps for their sound and ended up building one with the help of my tube techie friend John, my "Lil Wonder" with push-pull 50L6 beam power tubes and real tube tremolo. I use compressor, delay and overdrive pedals in front of it. But most times I can't be bothered with all that so I've been looking for a small practice amp with a great clean sound but one that incorporates effects so no need for the pedals/batteries/wall warts/extra cords. I've bought and played through Crate, Peavey, Line 6, Yamaha, and other practice amps including the Fender G-Dec and the Roland Cube 20X. Some of these amps sounded pretty good but always something lacking tone-wise. And then recently I tried out this little Fender gem and the quest is over! Previous reviewers have complained about the "overly compressed" sound but that sound on the "Vintage Tweed Champ" and on the "Blackface" settings is exactly the sound I've been looking for all these years. Okay, no mid EQ on this amp but by backing the treble control off to about 4 and turning the bass control up to 10, my Strat with its vintage alnico pups sounds just fine with all the quack and sparkle and glassiness Strats are noted for on the "strat" (back and middle pickups combined) pickup setting. On the neck pickup with the guitar's tone control rolled back to about 3 or 4, I get that full thick clean bluesy sound that is to die for. I'm using the hall reverb or the reverb + delay settings on the amp and I'm in heaven. Don't need anything else. But then there's all those other amp sims and effects to explore too! Well, I'll get around to those one of these days but for now, I'm getting the sounds I've always heard in my head but never got from any other practice amp. All this man could ask for.

Haven't owned it long enough to rate but it feels really solidly built.

From reading other reviews I gather Fender ain't the greatest in this respect.

A great little "all tube" practice amp with all kinds of digital amp sims and effects at a price that won't break the bank and a size and weight that won't break your back. nd don't let the 5 watt rating fool you. This little amd can get plenty loud enough for practice or jamming with friends. At low volumes you can dial in all the dynamics you could want without pissing off the neighbors. If you're looking for a practice amp that combines the best of what a basic class A tube amp and a solid state digital modeling amp have to offer, look no further. This is IT!!!

Excellent Amp for Rock/Blues - very versatile and the various "voices" make it a great value. Line out is great for recording and/or thru another amp. It's mono, so headset needs compatibility. Wanted tube sound and the digital (read solid state) effects were a bonus. Tube Preamp, Tube output amp

ESP Traditional Strat w/ noiseless seymour duncans vintage rails
G & L ASAT Classic Tele
Godin LG w/ seymour duncan P90's. Very versatile, you can find great settings for your instruments (as mentioned prior). Tube's put out a bit of noise, but hey, we play well above that in volume - you won't notice a bit unless looking to complain about something that don't matter. The tube chime comes thru well at moderate volumes. The F/X (effects) will suffice at lower output for most purposes. I bought this as a practice/late night amp. It fits the bill.

New to me ... no real opinion here.

Nope, again no need.

So far, this one rocks. Needed to upgrade from a VOX solid state Practice Amp (DA-5) which is great for it's purpose. It's easy to haul around, and even though a tube amp, still fits the lower volume / practice needs. Sweet - for most of us with certain parameters (volume / tone) this one really fits the bill. Highly recommended. For purists who want to spend a grand, go elsewhere - but you're missing out.

The features are / would be nice, if the amp sounded good. Great, useful effects. Could use a midrange knob. Nice that it has a line out. The modeling feature gives just a bunch of bad fake amp tones.

I bought this and tested it for about a day. I played it with a MIM strat and A/Bed it against a valve junior with no effects.

Basically the tone is lifeless, thin, sterile and harsh. The blackface models are useless. This amp is good if you are a mindless SRV drone and want to sound like SRV played through a transistor radio.

Almost EVERY amp model is garbage. I agree with the previous reviewer, the compression is ATROCIOUS. It is impossible to get any kind of natural tone with this, as all dynamics are absolutely and completely squashed by this horrible compression present on every model.

So to sum up this amp basically embodies a BRITTLE OVERCOMPRESSED SOUND.

I will say it has two good things going for it - the jazz channel is pretty decent, and the effects are pretty good. You can easily get a nice jazz tone with a touch of reverb. All the rest is garbage. I'll give it a 4 for the jazz tone and because it must be better than something out there, I don't know maybe a gorilla or a walmart first act.

BUY A NEWER VALVE JUNIOR VERS 3 AND SOME KIND OF EFFECTS! YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.

When I tried to turn it up at all the cabinet started buzzing. I'm the second owner and the amp has only been out of the store for less than two months. So I'd say not reliable.

This amp needs to be killed.

2008 china, pretty cute if you ask me
16 voicings, the 2band eq is moderate (doesn't alter the flavour of the model you have on), fx level is a bless.
Big constant buzz when on, clearly a downfall for the purpose of this bedroom amp.

First, it is very enjoyable to play this, really. Lots of fun in there!
But: too much compression on nearly all presets, my fm25dsp (same models) was better in this regard.
The sound quality is not that better in the vibro either, at least at low volume.

I like the distorted tones of the vibro, crispy and with some air in them. The crunchy fender tones are way good too.
The clean tones, on the other hand, are not great. Because of the amount of compression you don't get natural sounds, I am very deceived.
Since it has one channel I intended to use it at times like a clean amp w/fx, and use my distortion box like always. Well, the results are poor, not worth the trouble.
Therefore I'm returning this amp.

The fx are good, and you can mix them as you like. No adjustments possible, but no bad things either. I like it the way it is.

In my experience chinese amps are properly made, better than korean-vietnam God knows whereelse .
Won't bet on it though.

Big big laugh here, F...er as I name them!
Worthless, anyone telling you they're good are liars.

Deception on the clean sounds department. I think Fender overdid the compression effect (of class a tube...) on this one. It clearly sounds artificial and anti tubelike.
Since my FM25DSP doesn't compress like this, I think the SuperChampXD won't too.
Surely a better choice, I'll order one and we'll see.

This said, if you don't need cristal clear clean sounds, go for it. The little amp is much fun to play, and hits the marks.
Good idea, this project!

Amp was made in 07, and just picked it up from Durham Music....I can't stop playing it! It has all the features and effects I need for my style.
At 5 Watts, it perfect for my home space, and i can run my 12" Celestion cab too.

I play a 50's Classic Strat, and that goes hand-in-hand with this amp...very clean, bright highs & yet some very dirty gain also. Although now Fender uses EH tubes now for the Chinese amps, I switched to a Sovtek KT66 and a GT12AX7M, superior sound quality! So many different settings, you can go for hours. A truly good amp for the $$$

Its a Fender, I've never in 27 years had an issue with a Fender Amp or Guitar....
I've only had the amp for a few days so you may see this change..or not.

ever had to deal with Fender.

In the 25+ years I have been playing, and all the amps I have bought, sold, traded & destroyed, this is really a great amp. As mentioned before, you can run a cab through it, or simply on its own. I'm going to likely change the speaker, as i does sound too "high" for me. I like the vintage speakers...
I'd definatly replace it if it was "misplaced".

Read the previous posts

It has all you need, 16 different voicings and some effects delay reverb and chorus. I never use any more than that. preamp volume and master, tone what else do you need.

I sat down in a shop and played one of these amps, was there for ages, they threw me out in the end!! something about having to close...
Every different setting gave me a sound that reminded me of a different song or artist. Well that was that, i was away. The ones that come to mind are "Neil Young" "Any Blues you can think of" "SRV, Hendrix, Gary Moore, Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc etc
It's not noisy and I love it.

Can't comment, only had it 24 hours

No Comment, never had to deal with them.

I have to agree with the previous posts. This is a fantastic little amp. The fender vibrochamp was my first ever amp as a youngster, bought from a shop in Bristol for ??90 in 1978, that was loads of wedge then. Played it to the edge of it's life till I got a 50w marshall combo. Had lots of amps since but this thing is brilliant. I haven't managed to get a bad sound from it. Im mostly using telecaster with texas specials and a strat deluxe with lace hot gold pickups. but it sounds great with gibsons and my epiphone casino. I play blues,rock and all sorts. Don't gig anymore so the ability to get a range of sounds at a sensible volume is great. haven't tried the line out facility yet but will fire up the 8 track later on.
Buy one.... you need one of these amps!!!!
And no I don't work for Fender, although if you guys need an ad man give me a call....

This amp rocks! I went to Guitar Center just looking around, saw that it was a 5 watt tube 6v6 class A with a single preamp tube 8" speaker and $249.00 I plugged in a mexican start and I was in disbelief I couldn't walk away from it. It's the amp I've been waiting years for. It has the 50's and 60's fender sounds that have eluded a lot of newer Fender amps. Two other guys who were jamming in the store stopped to come over and check it out. Each very impressed. We all agreed it had "the fender sound". I've had a lot of fender amps over the years, the blackface princeton reverb had always been my favorite, they're hard to find and often over grand. This amp has that sound and more. The gain knob lets you get that verge of overdriven sound at different volume levels. Loud enough to jam with. The added feature If you try it, you'll probably buy it.

There's a gain and volume bass and treble. There is a rotary voice selector with sixteen amp styles The sound quality for the tweed(1)and blackface(2) voices is dead on. That's all I was looking for there are also Brittish and other style amp settings, also has a rotary selector for the effects and a level knob for the reverbs and delays, all sound pretty good.

Had it a day so far no issues yet

I was looking for something small with a fender sound I was thinking of getting the Champion 600, the Vibro Champ XD is what I had hoped the 600 would sound like, it doesn't. For $50 more I got a great sounding very useablbe versatile amp. I play blues, country, rock styles. I also tried the newer Princeton Reverb Recording Amp and was not impressed with the sound. I have not tried the new 65 Princeton Reverb Reissue but that is around $900. For $249 the Vibro Champ XD is a great value.

WOW it has everything and more. What a practice Amp, i have tested many in years but his little wonder is just amazing. Fender did a real good job, i even went back to the shop and bought me Super Champ XD. Both are fine but the Vibro Champ is still better. It has many Voicings, Effects, and a real good distortion even if i do play clean most of the times i like that tone. Power is enough for my use so i am pleased with it. Tube Class A Wonder!

This is the reason i bought it, the sound is amazing. I never thought of such a good sound in this little Amp. I am curious about changing the Tubes so i guess i will try that later but for now, it is more then i can expect. I played the much more powerful Roland JC120 as the clean channel is great but i much more liked this tiny Box. I can not explain it but it has that sound i am looking for. No Noises at all!! I play Jazz, Blues and Funk. The Guitars i use are: Ibanez GB10 and a Fender Strat Custom made with EMG active Pickups. Both sound perfect with the Champ XD. Really, you must check this out!!

Looks perfect to me. Well built like most Fender Amps.

Have no idea, never needed any.

Sorry but i give this amp a full Ten for everything! I am still surprised and i had a Blues Junior before and i cost me double the price and it had no effects at all. Compared the price and other Amps in this range this one`s the Best for sure!!