Fender Vibro Champ

Volume, Treble, Bass, Vibrato Speed and Vibrato depth dials.

Luv it.

This is why I decided to submit a review. I'm 42 now. Got my first guitar when I was 12. Must have been my 14th birthday when my parents gave me the Vibro Champ. It was somewhere in the late 70s, early eighties. (While I'm writing this, I suddenly remember how it smelled when I got it.)

Anyway, I played guitar a lot until I was about 30. Got into electronic music then and stopped playing the guitar. Then, when I was 40 I got a son, and decided I would stop doing electronic music, but because I couldn't quit making music altogether, I picked up the guitar again to just jam a bit. Got my Champ from the basement. It had become, literally, rusty. Fearful that wouldn't work after all these years, I switched it on. It still worked!

The point of this story: I hope I can give my son a present that he will still use 30 years on.

Never even switched the tubes, perhaps it will sound even better if i did...

Never needed any.

Read the above.

Mine is a 1969 Vibro-Champ. It has every feature I would want in a single-ended, class A tone box. I use the #2 quieter input jack for cleaner playing and the hotter #1 jack for earlier breakup. All original, with RCA tubes and an 8" Oxford speaker. This amp's simple circuit works great for checking out differences in tubes and guitars. Its best feature is that it has no tone-killing stuff mucking up the circuit. The Vibro in mine sounds really cool, I can slow it way down for a phasing effect or make it sound like I'm playing through a Leslie. I have fun trying different mic positions, running it into a board and then cranking the headphones...I've hung it from the ceiling, hung it in a well, took it to bed with me. It whispers, it screams. A must for any serious guitarist.

I typically use old pre-CBS Strats and Tele's (i know -- they make any amp sound great). My '69 is kind of "sparkly" and really touch sensitive, which is OK for me 'cuz i play with my fingers. It likes analog pedals, hates digital stuff. It doesn't get a 10 because the old Oxfart speaker can't deal with heavy stuff. I rig a speaker line out to a 4 ohm JBL 2x12 cabinet and stick in a "hot" JJ 6v6 with "hot" recto tube when it's time to bring the thunder. The circuit can't do tight, crunchy modern distortion because of tube rectification. It's really good at sloppy, bluesy stuff like early Zep or spanky sounds like Clapton's opening riff to Layla...which was played on a Champ, of course. Keef liked to use them a lot, too.

The hand-built Fenders of the 60's are legendary in their durability and reliability. They have no equal amoung tube amps. Champs are especially kill-proof due to their simplicity. Mine tolerates all sorts of abuse.

Vintage amps are Fender's biggest competitor. Seriously, though -- there are lots and lots of people who know how to work on Champs. I would consider that plenty of support if you are considering buying a vintage Champ.

People are complaining that paying through the nose for a old Champ is making them not such a good value. I look at it this way -- a modern practice amp, no matter what you pay, drops in value by half as soon a you take it home. Same goes for the boutique amps. Get a vintage Champ, though, and you own an amp that actually appreciates in worth. Why? Because its the best-sounding, most versatile, durable, easily modified, portable tube tone machine you can get. That isn't going to change. Take it from me, I've been playing since the freakin' 60's. Get yours, and you'll be playing next to it in your rocking chair someday.

I just noticed that the story I posted below got chopped off at the end. This is a corrected version with the ending.
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Features are about as basic as you can get. On/Off, volumn, a few tone pots. That's all you get. That's all you need.

This is a tragic story. Be sure you have a box of tissues handy.

It was the summer of 1980. I lost my job and got turned down for unemployment benefits. Or at least they put an 8 week hold on it. After a few weeks I was at a point where my only friend in the world was a knickle that I have refused to spend. I actually ended up selling my blood twice a week for a pathetic $14 just so I could have something to eat. I ended up moving into my mom's basement.
Yeah, I was singin' the blues and feelin' em too.

Finally my unemployment came through. I had enough money to go pick up my rig from the pawn shop. The guitar was a Vantage Ghost. The amp was a Yamaha 50 112R that got me ridiculed on many occasions. It sounded like garbage. But my luck was about to change.

There in the pawn shop stood a sad looking little Fender Vibro Champ. It didn't have a speaker so they had paired it with an off brand 14" bass speaker. Oh, yeah, the guy who did that was a genius. But they were priced at a paltry $50. I wondered, "What would this little Fender sound like plugged into the input of my Yamaha?" I bought it and took it home to find out.

Hooking it up was as easy as pie. It had the right kind of jack since the 10" speaker had been replaced by the bass unit. I just ran that into the front of the Yamaha and plugged it in. I didn't know what to expect. Maybe I would blow up my Yammy. So I turned the volumn knob all the way down. I turned the Yammy on about half way and then dialed up the Champ about half way to 1. And it sounded good. It sounded REAL good.

I messed with the settings on the two amps looking for the best combination. And that's why I got hit by about 1000 watts of pure electricity. It knocked my *** across the room.

No, it wasn't harmful but it was dangerous. It wasn't current it was tone. I had created a monster. I'd never heard sounds like that in my life.

How can I describe this for you? The closest thing I can think to describe it is to say it was like the sound Hendrix got on "Band Of Gypsies" only it was a Fender sound not a Marshall. Which would make it a lot like a Mesa but even more radical. It was the sound of raw electricity. Like that downed wire you're not supposed to touch. It crackled. It sang. And damned if that little sonuva***** didn't scream like Hell had opened up and was trying to drag me down. I had found my signature sound.
I soon learned that if I kept the volumn knob on my guitar at about 3/4 I could get bell-like feedback by kicking it up with my little finger and adding some finger vibrato. That Vantage Ghost would sustain forever. And it had the vibro unit which was fun as Hell to play with. The concrete walls and floors added a reverb you can't get from a spring unit. So I took the spring unit out and made a stand for it where I could just ******* kick the thing when the urge hit me and I'd get special effects you can't imagine. WAAAAANNNNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I took a reel to reel tape deck and recorded sounds from shaking a piece of sheet metal in front of a microphone. This sounded a lot like thunder and could be played thru the amp by stepping on a foot switch. CCRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!! It was kind of a "Whole Lotta Love" thing. I thought about going by the name, "Thor - The God of Thunder". I think someone else ended up using that one.

-------------------------------------------
There are known to wear like a friggin' tank. Hard to believe but there seem to be lots of them around from the '60's that have have little to nothing done to them. They just keep soldiering on.

I sat down in that basement for about 3 months. I'd get up after my mom went to work and the only thing I'd stop for was to watch Leave It To Beaver and have a sandwich around 1:00. And I'd turn down once in a while when the cops showed up. But then it was right back at it until my mom stood at the top of the stairs screaming her lungs out for me to stop. Its truly a wonder I didn't go deaf. After a few months of this I had an pretty good act together. It was just me but I decided to go to the local college town and see if I couldn't hook up with some like minded players.

Then my luck turned bad again.

---------------------------
Never used them so I dunno.

I was in the park in Lawrence Kansas one afternoon when somebody asked me if I wanted to buy some acid. I was willing to play with my brain cells in hopes that it might make me a better player. "Just do half" the guy said, "its REALLY strong."

Well to make a long story short by the time it was all over my guitar and amp were gone and I was bouncing off the walls at the mental hospital in Osawatamie Kansas.

Well that was about 27 years ago. And I've blown up more amps than I can count trying to get that sound back. I tried it with Fender Twins, Ampegs, Music Mans, Carvins, even a Mesa Mark IV with a 4 12 cab. When that one failed I launched a search and found a Yamaha 50 112 and Fender Vibro Champ hooked them up the same way and sounded just like...

dog crap. I have no idea what was so special about the first ones I'd strung together but it never worked again.

So how do I rate this amp for tone? About a 15 on the first one and a zero the second time around.

Features are about as basic as you can get. On/Off, volumn, a few tone pots. That's all you get. That's all you need.

This is a tragic story. Be sure you have a box of tissues handy.

It was the summer of 1980. I lost my job and got turned down for unemployment benefits. Or at least they put an 8 week hold on it. After a few weeks I was at a point where my only friend in the world was a knickle that I have refused to spend. I actually ended up selling my blood twice a week for a pathetic $14 just so I could have something to eat. I ended up moving into my mom's basement.
Yeah, I was singin' the blues and feelin' em too.

Finally my unemployment came through. I had enough money to go pick up my rig from the pawn shop. The guitar was a Vantage Ghost. The amp was a Yamaha 50 112R that got me ridiculed on many occasions. It sounded like garbage. But my luck was about to change.

There in the pawn shop stood a sad looking little Fender Vibro Champ. It didn't have a speaker so they had paired it with an off brand 14" bass speaker. Oh, yeah, the guy who did that was a genius. But they were priced at a paltry $50. I wondered, "What would this little Fender sound like plugged into the input of my Yamaha?" I bought it and took it home to find out.

Hooking it up was as easy as pie. It had the right kind of jack since the 10" speaker had been replaced by the bass unit. I just ran that into the front of the Yamaha and plugged it in. I didn't know what to expect. Maybe I would blow up my Yammy. So I turned the volumn knob all the way down. I turned the Yammy on about half way and then dialed up the Champ about half way to 1. And it sounded good. It sounded REAL good.

I messed with the settings on the two amps looking for the best combination. And that's why I got hit by about 1000 watts of pure electricity. It knocked my ass across the room.

No, it wasn't harmful but it was dangerous. It wasn't current it was tone. I had created a monster. I'd never heard sounds like that in my life.

How can I describe this for you? The closest thing I can think to describe it is to say it was like the sound Hendrix got on "Band Of Gypsies" only it was a Fender sound not a Marshall. Which would make it a lot like a Mesa but even more radical. It was the sound of raw electricity. Like that downed wire you're not supposed to touch. It crackled. It sang. And damned if that little sonuvabitch didn't scream like Hell had opened up and was trying to drag me down. I had found my signature sound.
I soon learned that if I kept the volumn knob on my guitar at about 3/4 I could get bell-like feedback by kicking it up with my little finger and adding some finger vibrato. That Vantage Ghost would sustain forever. And it had the vibro unit which was fun as Hell to play with. The concrete walls and floors added a reverb you can't get from a spring unit. So I took the spring unit out and made a stand for it where I could just f***ing kick the thing when the urge hit me and I'd get special effects you can't imagine. WAAAAANNNNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I took a reel to reel tape deck and recorded sounds from shaking a piece of sheet metal in front of a microphone. This sounded a lot like thunder and could be played thru the amp by stepping on a foot switch. CCRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!! It was kind of a "Whole Lotta Love" thing. I thought about going by the name, "Thor - The God of Thunder". I think someone else ended up using that one.

I sat down in that basement for about 3 months. I'd get up after my mom went to work and the only thing I'd stop for was to watch Leave It To Beaver and have a sandwich around 1:00. And I'd turn down once in a while when the cops showed up. But then it was right back at it until my mom stood at the top of the stairs screaming her lungs out for me to stop. Its truly a wonder I didn't go deaf. After a few months of this I had an pretty good act together. It was just me but I decided to go to the local college town and see if I couldn't hook up with some like minded players.

Then my luck turned bad again.

I was in the p

There are known to wear like a friggin' tank. Hard to believe but there seem to be lots of them around from the '60's that have have little to nothing done to them. They just keep soldiering on.

Never used them so I dunno.

I think I answered all that above.

vibro is killer. vibro effects pale in comparison. the footswitch seems forward-looking for the time it was made. i will add a mid knob to the front plate if i can bring myself to drill a hole in it. there actually is a mid control - it's just a fixed resistor in the tone stack the way they made it.

the champ is aptly named. for workaday recording jobs, it is pretty hard to beat. this is the ultimate amp for larry carlton/robben ford type sound. it is the ultimate platform for pedals. it is the ultimate clean sound. it has no nuts when overdriven in the lowest register, but that's what marshalls are for. or pedals - this thing with any boutique modded DS-1 gets that job done, you just can't have the champ's own breakup if you need those low notes to be fat. the response curve of this amp is perfect - any mic pre can really grab ahold of it and shape it to fit a track. if i had to live the rest of my life with only one amp, this one might be it. BTW try it with different cabs. that little 8" POS is not the only speaker in the world

hand made by the WWII generation. it is a tank. who know - whoever assembled it might have actually built tanks before going to work at fender in fullerton

been playing 25 years. still playing new stuff, still teaching teenagers, still arranging for up-and-comers. if you don't "get" the champ you suck. why any studio or session player would be without one is beyond me.

My Vibro Champ was made in 1973, apparently one of the last to use pine cabinets prior to using plywood. It does sound different than other later model Vibro Champs I have encountered with ply cabs. I got really lucky with this amp because it is 100% stock. RCA and GE tubes plus the original Oxford speaker. I checked out the guts and everything there appears to be original as well. The features it has are very simple; volume, bass, treble, tremolo speed and intensity. It is a single ended 6V6 design with a single 12AX7 driving a two stage preamp section. Another 12AX7 drives the on-board tremolo and it has a 5Y3GT rectifier tube to complete the tube compliment. Like many others, I do wish it had reverb, but I plan to get a Fender outboard tube reverb unit in the near future so no problem really.

I know many people think that these amps are all hype. I know this because I used to feel the same way. I mean, how good can a basic student amp from the 1960-1970s rated at 6W really sound? Well the simple truth is these little guys are tone monsters. Of course, you have to like Fender amps and you have to understand that these will now be powering your next club or arena gig. But it will be great for a coffee house gig or better yet, your own enjoyment at home in in your home studio. The amp itself has three sweet spots in my opinion. The first is at 4 on the volume dial where you get just at the edge of breakup tone with single notes sounding like a piano note tone. Then at 7 you get nice edgy low gain breakup with a bit of speaker breakup thrown in and you are in early Led Zeppelin land without splitting your eardrums. Finally at 10 this little amp is giving you all it has and it is fabulous - rich in harmonics and overtones. For the record, I use all Fender guitars, most American made and all with vintage type single coil pickups. I have also recently tried putting my Fulltone Fulldrive II MOSFET and/or Fulltone OCD in front of the amp with excellent results as well. But really, you just don't need any pedals at all with this amp. I'd also like to gush over the on board tremolo in this and all Vibro Champs. Granted I am a big lover of tremolo, but this one sounds absolutely wonderful. It uses a bias vary type circuit as opposed to the optical coupled type found in other amps. I like this type much better myself and it really is smooth and seductive in it's effect.

Well let's see, it is a 34 year old amp with original parts still in it. I'd say that qualifies for a high reliability rating. Even if it goes whack on me I can work on it myself.

As I said, I am strictly a Fender kind of guy. Never had any problem with any of their stuff so I can't say how the company is to deal with but if you define customer support as also providing excellent products that work as advertised and are consistently high in build quality then you have to believe they are willing to stand behind their products. benefit of the doubt in my mind anyway.

How can I NOT rate this a perfect ten? It sounds awesome, works flawlessly and is light weight and has stood the test of time. I am the third owner of this particular amp. The first used it for many years in his guitar instruction studio as a practice amp. The second owner is a friend of mine who also took excellent care of the amp. The silver face has some scratches where instrument cables missed their marks, but other than that it is pristine really. I shined up the tolex and it is remarkable how good it looks. I was never a big fan of a silver face look, but I'll live with it to save the $$$ it would cost me extra to get a black faced era Vibro Champ in this good of a condition and all original. I feel I got an excellent deal all around and I am glad that I didn't get one of the new Champion 600 amps (made in China) that Fender came out with this year. Those run $200 and this one ran $300 and in just terms of build quality and mojo, the Vibro Champ is clearly superior. If you are wondering which way to go, I strongly urge you to at least try to find a SF Vibro Champ before "settling" for some modern day poser. I'm sure glad I did.

1973, vibrato option, 2 channels, great studio/practice/in the living room amp. Great tube tone.

The sounds are just as everyone has said. Fantastic. I play a 63 Fender Jazzmaster and it suits the guitar just perfectly. It's also fun to run a ricky 12 string thru it for giggles. This amp sings, and yes crank up the volume of the amp and use the guitar for sound. It came with RCA and GE tubes in it which i got lucky on, they're probably from the 70's. The Jensen speaker sounds great, i actually for fun ran it through one of the 12 Blue Alcinos in my AC-30 , man, that is unexplainable!

Never has broken on me, i've been thinking about replacing the output tranny and the power. It will probably open up the amp about 10 times as much, always use the ones made by mercury magnetics if you ever consider this. Basically this amp is as reliable as a 6 watt fender amp from 1973 should be.

Don't need it.

It's good for what it is. Practice, studio, living room.

Made in 1977. The amp tech I took it too (Heights Guitar in Cleveland Heights, Ohio ... awesome!) gave it a clean bill of health and told me that the 70's models were basically the same specs as the 60's model. (So save yourself a bundle on e-bay and get a 70's model).

A simple, basic, beautiful amp. Two channels, vibrato -- and that's about it. I play for fun and stress relief -- jazz, blues, rock ... basically whatever strikes my mood at the time I'm playing.

Life is complicated enough. It's good to have a simple amp.

Oh ............. my goodness!

A previous reviewer wrote about plugging in the Champ and having it give him an in-service in tone. That reviewer couldn't have been more correct.

Beautiful tone, and serious volume. I think this amp is rated at 6 watts. Had a friend come over with a 40 watt SS el-cheapo amp. My friend and I both agreed that the fender sounded louder.

I thought I knew what a great tone on an amp sounded like. I had no idea until I plugged in this baby.

Tone is completely subjective of course, and I'm a complete tone snob. This little bad boy fits the bill for me.

The amp tech I took it to wouldn't touch it ... said there was nothing wrong with it.

What other 30 year old product is sitting around your house that still works?

This baby is a work horse!

No idea. Bought it off ebay. Wouldn't bother Fender with a 30-year old product.

Been playing 25 years (yikes!)...strictly amateur and just for fun.

I run an Ibanez AS-80 (ES 335 semi-hollow clone) ===> (boss DS-1 distortion; Boss SD-1 overdrive; Boss CE-2 chorus depending on the sound I want).

AS-80 ==> Champ : gives a great, almost jazz box sound

AS-80 ==> SD-1 ==> Champ : I can get pretty close to B.B. King's blues sound. (but not his style! He's the Master Yoda of Blues, and I'm a freakin' padawan learner! ;-)



If it were lost or stolen, I'd buy another one in a heartbeat.

1976 USA. SIlverface model. Specifications are easy to find.
It is NO versatile amp, as it only has one channel, and few controls to tweak.
Wish it had reverb, but i can absolutely live withou it.
Forget high gain or metal. It was not designed for that. It was designed for sweet sounds... that can be crancked to a mild overdrive if you use medium or high output humbuckers.

This is the strong part of this amp. Its sweet tone. Nothing beats this little beast of tone. Stratos with medium output single coils makes this ample whistle bell-like tones. Wonderfull
Starts to breakup around Vol 6... and with absolute response to picking dynamics.
In Vol 10 you sound crunchy with stratos. Overdriven with humbuckers.
I use it for room practice mainly. Can hold very well stompboxes... BUT you can't get a great bottom-end, cause of the 8" speaker.

1976, still running flawlessly.
Bought it used, and has no problem at all. No scratchy pots, no unwanted noises.

Live in Chile...
All my amps are serviced by two local guys (brothers) that work together.

I've been playin for 13 years. Almost regular daily practice since i started playing in 1994.
Own JCM 900, JCM 2000, Bassman, Bandmaster, JC 120, Champ 12, Vibrochamp, and have had others. ALso Fender stratos, G&L, Les Paul studio, Flyng V, ESP Eclipse, and others.
This is a REALY MUST HAVE amp.
Has everything you need in a good amp... BEAUTIFULL TONE.
And doesn't need anything else

This is a 1977 model modified into a head only by the previous owner who expertly and professionally cut off the speaker part of the amp. He wanted ease of cartability to recording studios plus the ability to plug into any speaker he might want. Everyone who sees it thinks it's cute and it is. Since it was already modified, I decided to have reverb added by Torres Engineering as well as a midrange booster on the treble knob. Wow! Many who own VC's say "If it only had reverb". I'm here to say that with reverb added, it's incredible. Since I also have a stock 1977, unmodified Vibro-Champ, I was OK with modifying this already modified amp. You can read my review about my stock VC earlier on in this forum. This amp works well for all my musical styles which you can read about in my earlier VC review. The ratings here are for the modified amp.

I will make a little joke and say that you can do some "Jimi Hendrix Junior" stuff with this amp by overdriving it into distortion. I am not kidding, it is a hoot and it's real. I once jammed with a young whippersnapper for about an hour doing just that. He was very impressed as I slid my guitar's neck string first across the mic stand, playing with and shaping the feedback. But it won't give you permanent hearing loss like the Big Boy Marshall stacks might. It really sounds good through my Marshall 1x12 loaded with a 12" Eminence GB-12 speaker, which is the speaker I use most of the time with this amp. I've daisy chained it with my stock VC with its 8" speaker with a 12" speaker on this modified VC and it's quite astonishing. What you can get out of these little amps is really mind boggling. The only effect this amp has is tremolo which I use a lot. This tremolo is really the bomb, easily comparing to my '65 Fender Twin Reissue in terms of quality of tremolo sound. And far better than my Silverface and Blackface Princeton Reverb's tremolo which pretty much suck by comparison. The distortion can get quite brutal, and it's a bit muddy, but using an Eminence GB-12 speaker gives more clarity and punch. The GB-12 is a copy of the Celestion Greenback which I think sounds better and costs a bit less as well. I also have a 2x12 Marshall 1936 speaker cab loaded with two Greenbacks, so I have a good basis of comparison. Didn't mean to get off track with the speakers, but when you hook good speakers up to this little amp, it truly rocks. Plug it into a 4x12 cab and you'll be surprised at how good it sounds. It's not a noisy amp, I think because it's so low wattage. It's a Class A amp, and that gives it a bit of a bite for a teeny little amp. It has teeth. The reverb added by Torres Engineering is really high quality and sounds just like Fender reverb on the bigger Fender amps. Very nice mod and really rounds out the sound quality on this amp. The midrange boost added gives you a nice fat sound if you want it. With the boost on, it seems to get more sensitive to fingers across the guitar strings as you play. However, it gives the amp some more flexibilty and a greater range of expression.

Torres Engineering checked the entire amp out and tuned it up when they did the mods noted above. As a result, the tone is better and the amp sounds stronger, more kick, a bit more top end, which is very nice. I'd say this amp is good to go for another 30 years. This amp has never broken down, but I've only had it since May 2006 when I bought it. Being modified to a head only amp makes it real easy to schlep around. Because of that, I use this as my back up amp. You can easily plug it into your combo amp's speaker and carry on if your larger/other amp dies during a gig. Just put a mic on it and you're there. For church, I play it with the speaker facing me so I can always hear it, and a mic on the speaker feeds the P.A. system.

This is the N/A section for a vintage amp like this. I've been told Fender won't touch these old amps. Not to worry, Torres Engineering or other qualified and experienced amp tech can easily take care of these amps. But make sure whoever works on your amp is good at what they do. I suppose an unqualified/inexperienced tech could ruin it. They are very simple and uncomplicated amps, which is why they sound so good! Warranty? The warranty of this amp most likely expired in 1978, a little while ago...

You can see my other reviews (Dr. Sound Good) for the gear I have. I have a lot of gear and I use it all. I've played guitar for 42 years. Played for audiences for 21 years, mostly church. Played in a commercial Country Western band for a year and a half. Played blues in a couple of bars.. If this amp were stolen I might get a little upset since with everything that's been done to this amp, I've spent a total of about $650 on it, including shipping to Torres and back, and initial purchase, tiny as it is. But to me it's worth it. A little package that makes a big and high quality warm, round, all tube sound. Can't beat tubes, in my opinion, for musicality. I have 2 vintage Fender Princeton Reverb amps, a stock VC, and you can check my other reviews for a complete listing of my gear if you want to.

1966 Fender Vibro Champ.
Very cool practice amp and I am told its excellent to record with in the studio.
1 Channel, Switchable Tube Vibrato, No headphone jack.
I use this to practice in my computer room because it does not get feedback from the monitor.
Its got 6 watts of raw tube power and will run you out of a normal sized room.

I play a ESP KH-2 with dual EMG 81 humbuckers and it sounds great through this little amp!
It will play well all music styles and even sounds good with newer effects pedals through it.
It is dead quiet unless you turn on the vibrato then it has a muffled vibrato sound when you put your ear to it,
I made a really wild sitar sound mixing the vibrato and a Boss Phaser pedal!
The little guy starts to break up at about 6 or 7 and will play clear all the way to 10 unless your using a lot of bass strings.
With a distortion pedal at low to medium volumes it sounds brutal!

This was a gift from the original owner and I am still using the original tubes and speaker!

N/A

I have had this a little over a month now and plan on selling it on eBay to buy a Marshall half stack. That sounds crazy don't it?
I love everything about it but I am poor and need a better Metal amp to play out of.
I wish I had the original pedal with it.

My Vibro Champ was built in 1975 so it's a "Silerface". It's in excellent condition. One channel/Two inputs/Volume/Treble/Bass/tremolo Speed/tremolo Itensity/On-Off switch/Pilot lamp with red jewel. 5Y3 rectifier tube/12AX7 preamp tube/12AX7 tremolo tube/6V6 power tube/RCA footswitch jack for tremolo/6 watts/8" EH replacement speaker. I suppose one could call the Vibro Champ a classic.

Can we agree that these are some of the best sounding small-format low-wattage tube amps ever? I absolutely love this amp. I scored it from a friend who gave it to me for bailing him out of jail. A few years ago I got an inexpensive but surprisingly decent Electro-Harmonix replacement speaker from Elderly Instruments to replace the (no joke) 8" woofer frankensteined from a home stereo speaker that was in the Vibro Champ when it was bestowed upon me. I'm thinking about replacing the EH with a Weber. Probably not a bad idea. I've experimented with a number of different tubes. I currently have a Sovtek 12AX7WA (the lowest power 12AX7 in the Sovtek line) as the preamp tube. It sounds ok, however I would never recommend it to anyone else. It was the only thing at my local guitar store and it sounded better than the Ruby tube I had in there before. I like EH tubes in the pre and power sections, but I'm waiting for delivery of my new JJ/Tesla tubes which I believe will be big time keepers. Also considering using a 12AU7 tube for the Tremolo section. Even with all my tube experiments this amp retains a quality of sound all it's own. When it starts overdriving, it's like eating a buttermilk biscuit. I imagine when I get around to ordering the Weber speaker, it'll be like biscuits n' gravy. I was just commenting to my wife the other day how great the Vibro Champ sounds with just my Tele plugged into it. It's rather odd for me because I'm kind of known for my inclination to plug into a lot of pedals. I'll say it again, I LOVE THIS AMP!

This baby stays at home. The only time it travels is to another studio for session use. It's the only amp I use for recording. Anyone who plays or has played live understands these are not appropriate amps, in most circumstances, for live work. That's not to say it couldn't work.

There are so many damn resources out there for tube amp owners. Things you can't do yourself, it's pretty easy to find a qualified technician. Plus most manufacturers don't support 30 year old equipment, duh!

I think if you've made it this far in my review you already know this has been a Vibro Champ lovefest!

I have a 1976 Fender Vibro Champ (Silverface) all-tube amp. The amp features a 6V6 power tube, a 12AX7 preamp tube and Vibrato (Tremelo) tube, and a 5Y3 Rectifier tube. The original Oxford 8" speaker has just been replaced by a Weber Signature Series ALNICO 8S. Controls are volume, treble, bass, speed and intensity (of the Tremelo), On/Off switch and a standard Fender jewel light. No headphone jack, effects loops or other nonsense to foul up that tone (more on this later). I use this amp for playing around the house and for occasional jams with my buddy. It's not loud enough for much else, unless you mike it at gigs.

What a fool I've been. I've owned a few tube/solid state/digital amps in my time. I thought they sounded great, and to my ears at the time, they did. Then I brought this sorry little amp home and it literally gave me a clinic on what a good tube amp should sound like. Hit an open low E, and it sounds like a piano. That "swirl" that people associate with tube amps is there. It wasn't in my other amps....I thought it was...I didn't know what I was talking about.

I play 2 varieties of Stratocaster - A Japanese Squier Strat from around 1984 that is my favorite, a US Made Fat Strat Texas special from around 2002, and I also spank a really sweet recent Squier Standard Telecaster. I'm a single coil kind of guy, although the Fender has a humbucker, I rarely use it.

My musical style is blues & rock with a heavy emphasis on blues. when I first brought the amp home, the stock Oxford speaker was pretty damn tired. It farted out at anything above 4 on the volume. After much research and hand-wringing, I ordered a Weber 8S online and installed it. To my surprise, the good tones were still there, and the farting-out gone for the most part - it's controllable. Now I can open the amp up to 10 and use the volume on the guitar to clean it up to my liking. Very nice. The breakup is very blues-friendly, and I will probably use my TS808 clone (Jeckle & Hyde) to coax rock sounds out of it, if I care to. There's not a whole lot of clean headroom, although there's more than I expected after I changed the speaker.

Sounds? You can get SRV sounds out of this, as well as James Gang "Funk 49" sounds, Clapton "Layla". As for me, I get really good Jay Northrop sounds out of it, and that's all that matters.


I rate this a 9 because of the still-somewhat-present farting.

It's a 30 year old amp. It's got point-to-point wiring, and a very simple circuit. Any tech whose brain hasn't been damaged due to sniffing glue can fix it.

I bought this from a shop in Lemoyne, and it appeared to have a problem with cutting out, but when I got it home the problem dissapeared. The dude at the shop gave me a nice price on it...knocked about $75 off. I'll buy more stuff off him. ;-)

HA!

I've been playing since 1981. I own 3 other amps; a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10, an Epiphone Valve Special, and a Vox Valvetronix AD30VT. This amp blows them all out of the water, along with any other amp I've ever owned, which includes an Early US made Fender Blues Jr., a Johnson Millennium 150, and various other amps I thought were all that and a bag of chips when I owned them. There is a quality of sound that is lacking in all of my other amps. It's got me thinking about investing in every one I can find until I have a wall of them. The Hot Rod can get somewhat similar sounds, but it's just not the same. The Vox, a great amp in it's own right, can get close, but it's just not the same. The Epi, which is supposed to be a Champ circuit, sounds dark and sparkle-less...it's just not the same. I don't know what the difference is...but thank goodness for it.

I have two of these, one from 1972 and the other 1980. Obviously both are silverface with oxford speakers. Simple, the way I like it. Wish I could have gotten them for less money but overall fits me perfectly. Completely original on both except the 1980 has a new 12ax7 tube and the 1972 a new 6v6. Both had the original tubes when I bought them but they needed to be changed. Also one of the resistors was replaced. My amp tech changed some wiring or something and made the 1980 set up like a blackface from the sixties. They do SOUND different from one another. The 1972 is thinner, clearer, with more bite and the 1980 is thicker, lower tone, with more umph! The 1980 is much louder than the 1972 also. The 1980 was made for Europe with a voltage switch and special plug. Much heavier than the other one. I think this is due to the transformer being much larger.

I love these amps. I use two stock American Strats and one stock American Tele. Clear sounding yet thick when needed. I run through an MXR Dynacomp, Ibanez TS9, and a Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man. The amps work great with and without effects. I love the tremelo on the 1972 but the 1980 is a little fast for my taste. I don't plan on changing the caps though as options are good.
I use these amps in church and slap a shure mic in front of them. We use in-ear moniters so stage volume / competition is not an issue. I just started daisy chaining them together and found I can have more than enough volume with these puppies. Alone they need to be mic'd to be heard on stage, together, you can hear yourself in just about any band situation. Plan on putting a Jensen P8r vintage reissue speaker in one of them to see how it works. Problably the 1980 one since it does tend to "fart out" past 4 on the volume.

Like I said, I've had them both looked at by a tech and he loves these amps. Simple to work on , Class A, straight signal, pure sound. Hand-wired and solid. These amps are used 4-5 times a week and haven't had an issue for the year I've owned them. I owned a Blues Junior and it sounded good but not as good as these. It also had an issue due to the printed circuit board shorting out where the tube plugged in. Not a problem with these. Built better.

Great vintage, tube sound, with lots of presence, and life. I get many compliments from folks for the quality of my sound. Now if I could just get complimented for my playing ability! Great for recording and home / living room use but must be mic'd and run through monitors for stage use unless you get two of them and daisy chain them. I know they don't want super high scores for stuff but I have tried MANY amps / equipment and have to stay within reason budget wise. These amps work great and they are the best I've ever used. If you are always using a sound system to project your sound into the audience, you don't need a half-stack. Just get good sound from a small amp and let the system do its job. Works for me.

Its a pretty straightforward little early silverface. It has just volume, treble, bass, speed and intensity controls from left to right. Its single channel, single 8" amp puttin' out a whopping 6 watts. It really has a cool country twangish sound without the scooped mids. Mind you, that i did get rid of the two 7025 tubes that were in the preamp section and put in a 12AX7 and a 12AT7 to clean things up a bit. As far as service, i couldn't ask for a better practice amp and possible recording amp, and as for the power, its sats6 watts, but its a loud 6 watts. The trem is really nice too withthe tamed preamp, too and, playing mostly country and a little contemporary christian, it serves well as either a great clean tone or a good starting point for a few pedals.

I play mostly twin humbucker style guitars....read as les paul and SG, with an occasional strat thrown in for those Alan Jackson moments when super twang is in order. It does get dirty with the distortion when cranked, but its all power tube grind (Super high gain is a no-show here...just classic OD.), and i control it with guitar volume. It feally suits what i play well. As i mentioned before, it has that twang built in from the factory. the first time i played it, i was supprised at how well my LP knock-off "put on its boots and hat". The bends really did sound good. As for those adverse side effects of an aged tube amp, none were there. The thing sat for 20 years... under its cover. Even if there were issues, we all know what they are and how to avoid and/or fix 'em. the only thing i plan on changing is the speaker. its showing effects of the cone getting a little worse for wear....Voice coil rub and a little rattle. A repro jensen of a eminence 875 will most likely be the replacement.

Its a fender...they're built like tanks. i did have 1 tube go out, but it wasn't one of the originals. It was one i put in to replace and save an original. As soon as i put a the new one, it fired up and kept going....no suprize there.

customer support is a non isue for this one...never needed it, but in the past between fender reps and the website i counld get what i needed. just not at lightnening speed for the oddball stuff

great little practice and recording amp that you can taylor to your tastes with tube and/or speaker changes with gret fender clean tone tha is good alone, but is just as a good base for "pedaling up" your sound. the only thing i wish it has was reverb, but electro harmonix has my favorite something to fix that.

A vintage guitar amp repair dude said it was made in 1977.
I play mostly rock and blues on this amp. It can do both easily. You could play any kind of music with this amp really.
It has one channel and 2 input jacks and tremolo. Wish it had reverb but I use a Boss RV-3 for that which is a great reverb pedal.
I use this amp mostly as a practice amp since it's a teeny 6 watt thing, but I've used it a few times in church: worship music. We rock out as much as we can! It can really put out, however, if you crank it up. I absoutely love the tube sound. Can't beat tubes for musicality in a guitar amp. Nice and warm.

I play a Gibson ES335, Les Paul custom, Eric Clapton signature strat, a 1976 strat, and acoustic guitars with pickups on them. I am mostly a bluesman, but also rock. It is not a noisy amp nor a quiet one. You'll get some buzzing from stage lights thru a strat, for instance, at higher volume levels. It has a kind of boxy thinnish sound to it...not a chunky solid sound like my Fender 65 Reissue Twin Reverb. You can make a lot of different sounds with it, however. It does have range. I haven't played it distorted at high volumes yet..I'll have to give it a go. I have a Boss distortion pedal I use instead of cranking the amp to distortion.

I bought it in 1993. In 1999 during a worhip music gig at church, smoke came out of the input jacks which puzzled me and looking back is hilarious: flaming out my amp in church! The amp was 22 years old at the time, and I doubt it'd ever been serviced. I was very lucky to have a vintage guitar amp guy who is very good at his trade who fixed it and gave it a good going over for $78.71. It's been fine ever since. It has this funny thing it does where one of the tubes just falls out every now and then..lose in the socket...I should get that fixed soon...but you just pop it back in and away you go! I like the simplicity of this little amp. That's very appealing.

Not an issue since the amp was 16 years old when I bought it. It was repaired by a vintage guitar amp specialist in 1999.

I've played guitar for 41 years. I got "you name it"...Marshall JCM 800 full stack, Marshall 8080 stereo Valvestate amp, Digitech GSP 2101 Studio Tube Preamp w/ 100 effects, Fender 65 Reissue Twin Reverb (sweet!), Yamaha 5050 solid state hissy sucky amp! If this amp were lost or stolen I'd be might pissed off! I'd probably get a vintage tube Princeton w/ reverb and tremolo if it got lost or stolen. What I love about this amp is it's tiny and easy to lug around, doesn't bother the neighbors, it's a very polite amp, and that fab tube tone..can't beat it. I do wish it had reverb, like everyone else who owns one. I recommend this amp to anyone who likes little tube amps. It's sweet.

Awesomely Simple!
Only Volume, Treble, Bass, and Vibrato!
No more headaches!

This is where it's amazing.

I'm a session player in New York. Last week I was doing a session at studio in Brooklyn. Of course, they had every amp you could ever want: blackface deluxe, super reverb, pro, and a variety of marshalls.

It's not very often you can have a whole line of these types of amps in a row, to compare the sounds.
To my ears-none of them sounded better than my simple vibrochamp.
It's a tone machine!
Of course, the super reverb is beautiful, but try bringing it on the subway!

I've been using it at gigs and rehearsals. It always keeps up- both volume wise and tone reliability wise.

Amazing!
Their amps are so good you dont even have to call customer support!

Amazing!
Phenomenal!
WOW!

this is a great rectifier tube amplifier, it not only has tone but plenty of volume for just 6 watts! it is a very reliable amp, i got mine at a flea market for 100 bucks and are very happy indeed!! i highly recommend this amplifier!!

i play a 68 strat with stock pickups and find if definitely sounds like a great fender amplifier!!

this a highly reliable amplifier and i trued to overdrive its ass off but it still works!!

it may never be needed

i ve been playing 30 years and it is a good all around amplifier

Very great all tube small amp. Many features that are not available on many of todays smaller amps such as tube rectification or all tube Vibrato. The one major thing it lacks is reverb and I hear a lot of people complaining about this so I found a place that will install true fender reverb http://www.torresengineering.com/. I highly recommend Torres. I am going to have torres do a overhaul on the one I recently purchased and if I decide to have the reverb installed I will post a future review on the amp after the mod.

Better then the sound of many 1000$+ amps I've played. Great clean tone but also able to achieve a wonderful tube break up that is very unique. I do recommend builing a second cab of similar size to the current one with a all pine construction, finger joints, a 10" alnico Weber speaker, and matching grill cloth. That in combination with a speaker switcher (Radial Tonebone) you can switch between the two speakers for the different styles you may need.

****Note**** I highly recommend doing your homework before attempting this. Dropping the Ohm load on a amplifier to low is not good and can harm your amplifier to a point that could be very costly. If you use caution, common sense, and do research you will be greatly rewarded.

The vibrato sound amazing but I have to complain about the sensitivity of the controls. Even the slightest nudge made changes in tempo of up to 30 to 40 cycles a minute (timed it with a metronome). I think I can correct by having the pots replaced. If this is not a issue related to the age of the pots I will look into other solutions to have a finer controll over the speed without sacrificing the wide range it has.

Stock as is .... Not a chance in hell would this survive the road but with proper service, caps, speakers, and tubes on hand I'd take this thing everwhere because of its sound. Maintaining this amp is not as bad as a full blown 100W all tube head since the tubes are cheap and a single trip to Torres Engineering for a overhaul will keep it going for another 30 years. If anything restoring and moding this amp just slighty to your tastes will actually make you trust it more and even give you a sense connection to the amp personally.

Well lets look at this from a standpoint of support from end users, owners, parts suppliers (weber), amp repair shops (Torres), and forums like this.

The customer support is endless because so many people adore these little buggers .... and for good reason. These amps are much easier to work on and not as dangerous as working on a 150W Mesa Tripple Rectifier. You still need you use caution when working with any amplifier but with these the danger is much less then that of a higher power amplifier. The knowledge base of info on these amps is endless and if you want to know something all you have to do is a little searching.

If you are not a do-it-your-self person then any qualified amp repair shop or Torres Engineering will have absolutly no troubles helping you out. I recommend getting your hands dirty though if you have even the slightest desire because you will be greatly rewarded every time you play this thing.

For the money you'd have to be stupid not to take a look at this. This amp is not for everyone though as it is not as versitile as some larger multi-channel amps today but if you realise it place in your setup you will love this amp.

Learning about modifing, maintaining, and repairing this amp has taught me a huge amount about the side of the signal chain that often gets neglected, amplifier input to final change of electric signal to knetic energy that comes from the speaker. It really puts you in the loop on the fact that every pass through something in the signal change effects the final resault of your sound .... including the speaker.

Finally got around to doing a review of the Vibro Champ. Probably not going to add anything hugely profound to the preceding ten million reviews but, hey sometimes you just have to throw your $0.02 in, don't you? (Even though I'm in Britain).
I've got two of these, a '65 and a '68. Both in great condition. Both sound different but the same, if you see what I mean. I actually dig the early silverface cosmetics more than the Blackface. It's just that phrase "Vibro Champ - amp" and the aged turquoise thread grill cloth. But the blackface is kind of classic so, they're both nice, whatever.
Tubes are 1 x 6V6GT, 2 x 12AX7, and a tube rectifier - "GZ" something. Output 6 watts, two channels, 8" speaker in a floating baffle (on the early ones), solid pinewood cabinet, Vol/Treb/Bass/Intensity/Speed, bags of mojo. ah, yes doesn't get much better than this. The reason I and other people play these is their tone, pure and simple. Raw, complex, pure sound. You can hear wood and glass and it's gorgeous.

OK, I'm playing a '52 reissue Tele with antiquities, a Natural Ash US Tele with Joe Bardens and a Koa Gibson '61 reissue SG with a WCR Filmore set. It responds to everything well, even the SG, which surprised me as I thought small Fenders like these would prefer single coils. The amps are dead silent, I mean DEAD silent at reasonable volume levels (up to about 6) with a very slight amount of background tube hiss past that. Nothing noticeable.

The interesting thing is the differences between them. The Blackface is actually slightly louder, with a more versatile tremolo which goes from sl-o-o-o-w to helicopter. The Silverface, on the other hand is a cleaner sounding amp with a more subtle but actually more interesting tremolo. It has a sort of spooky, ethereal shimmer. Both sound different yet equally amazing. The Vibro Champ tremolo is superior generally as it's a tube tremolo. It produces a deep mesmerising pulse that's better than any optoislator trem.

Sounds ranging from rich, spanking Fender clean to the most raucous overdrive you've ever hear can be had either by playing with the amps controls or using the volume/tone controls on your guitar. The thing I really love is the way you can hear so much wood come through and, although I'm using good guitars with great pickups, I feel these amps would draw the best out of anything you put into them. The sounds from these amps make me tingly. What more can you ask than that?

Interesting factoid: the physical characteristics of the small speaker cones in 8" speakers are such that they produce kind of throaty roar that larger speakers don't. True? Search me.

Now, the one criticism I could make about the Vibro champ is it's stock speaker, both tinny crappy utahs in my case. I switched these out for Weber sig 8's and never looked back. At $24.00 a piece, you can't go wrong with them (although I think the price may have gone up to $45.00 now :>( ).

There's no point taking the volume over about 8. It doesn't sound any better and it punishes the little chap for no reason. I read somewhere that "tube amps don't owe you anything before 2 or after 8 on the volume dial". This would seem to be true of the VC.

Responds to effects incredibly well. I've used the following with fantastic results: BOSS DM-2 analogue delay, Big Muff, BOSS CS-1 Compressor, EH Small clone, Small Stone. Looking forward to trying a Keeley Katana Boost on this.

There simply nothing to go wrong, or at least nothing I couldn't fix. The great thing about such a small amp is it's lowly tube compliment. Less tubes = less headaches. It also means you can afford to keep it stocked with the best.
These Vibro Champs have been going for 35 - 40 years and show no signs of slowing down.
Obviously they have to be maintained (I replaced the filter cap cans (these can be had from Vibro world or Antique electronic supply if you need them) and upgraded the cathode bypass caps rom 25uf/25v to 25uf/50v)). Rest assured any love you show it will returned tenfold.

Irrelevant for two amps that are knocking 40.

This isn't a honeymoon review. I've had them both for about seven years. Please note that the glowing "ten" reviews are WITH maintenance and replacement speakers. If you buy one with run down electrolytics and a stock speaker it might not sound that great. When running right, though, I don't believe there's anything that can touch them. I just wish Fender would see the light and start producing an all tube, single ended, pine boxed, hand wired tone monster like the Vibro Champ again.

Fender Vibro Champ. Made in 1978. Not too versatile, but what for it does, it does it really well. Good for rock, good for jazz. Same features as depicted below. Wish it had reverb. Great tremolo, I modyfied it to a slower tempo (just changing a cap), I also removed another cap, so now it doesn't break so early, and there is more clean volume. At 10 breakes nicely. It had a 8" speaker, and I put a 10" Weber VTS (10A100, 3.2k). Now it's a serious amp, I take it to gigs, just hanging a mic to the P.A. Great amp.

Not noisy at all. Original valves & caps still. Great for recording.

Been playing for 20 years.
I Owned: '64 Fender bassman (blackface), '66 fender Showman (blackface), Mesa Boogie DC5, Marshall valvestates, Yamahas, etc.
I don't miss any of them. This amp is all I need.
Change the speaker for a "10 Weber, you'll have to modyfie the board, but you won't regret it.

This is a 1970 AA764 vibrochamp 6 watt all tube amp. I searched Hi and Lo for this little gem. I had one 25 years ago when I played my Ibenez "Law Suit" Les paul through it. The last of the cool old time low wattage amps. I play blues and classic rock. This is just what a middle aged guy with kids and a wife needs, not to excessively loud but loud enough to get good speaker breakup on about 7 or 8. My only gripe is that it doesn't have reverb. I give it a 9 because of no reverb.

I play a Godin (pronounced go-DAN) exit 22 which is a very versitle guitar for under $500.00. You could play any style of music through this thing. Had to replace the original Sylvania 12ax7. It was very noisy before but now it is as quiet as any solid state practice amp out there. I get good breakup at about 7 or 8 on the volume but get really ballsy distortion with my RealTube distortion pedal and crybaby wah peddal (I like that Clapton, Vaughn, and Hendrix sound and style). Real sweet tone. This is one of those amps that Fender should reissue.

This thing is 35 years old and all of the tubes and the speaker (altough I replaced the original with a Jensen Cr8) with the exception of the preamp tube are original. I would definitly gig this thing miced up in a small venue with out even the thought of needing a backup.

Never had to call. Don't think I ever will have too.

I just started playing again after a 25 year break. I told my wife my midlife crisis would either be a ferarri, a 20 year old nimpho blond, or a guitar setup and lucky for all I chose to pick up the guitar again. If someone stole it I would definitely call the guys at Galaxy Music in Stone Mountain, GA and have them put me back on the wish list for another one (after I hunted down and seriously killed the guy who took it). This thing has the classic Fender tone in an amp that I can play on my back Porch without disturbing my neighbors.

68 or 69 silverface VC, all original tubes except for the 6v6 which I had to replace last week (with another used original RCA). It's plenty versatile enough for me, especially with a footswitch for the tremolo.

It's my number one amp, I've used quite a bit of other gear and nothing quite compares to the tone of this amp, so I use it nearly exclusively, even (mic'd) at larger venues.

I use a late 60s (or early 70s) knockoff LP called a "grande" as my primary guitar, and an Ibanez GAX-70, and a late-model mexican deluxe super strat. The amp performs well with both pickup styles, and gives a clean tone up to about 5-6, then starts to break up into a warm overdrive at higher volumes.

I get *ZERO* noise from this amp. Period.

Setup:
guitar -> zoom gfx5 -> old "memory man" chorus -> boss DS-1 -> vibro champ

It's older than I am. The only thing that's ever been replaced on it is the 6v6 tube, and I did that last week... not too bad for an amp that's pushing 40 years old.

eh? who needs it?

Got the amp from my dad, who got it from someone else in the late 70's or early 80's. I've had a number of different amps over the years, and nothing has come close. If it were to get stolen, the thief can rest assured that I will find who he is, hunt him down, break his elbows/kneecaps, render him permanently sterile, and take back my amp.

This is a 1977 Fender Vibro-Champ in original condition. Very basic features HOWEVER they actually do something sound-wise. L to R Volume, Treble, Bass, Speed, Intensity. It has the original Oxford 8" speaker and RCA tubes; 1 x 6v6, 2 x 12ax7, 5AR4 rectifier. Looks almost mint!

I bought this amp as a simple practise amp and for quiet jamming with my band. Instead of going for a cheap Solid State (and I nearly went the Vox Pathfinder 15R) I caught the vibe of a vintage amp and scored the Vibro-champ instead. I play single coild guitars mainly although I do own a MIJ '72 Reissue Tele. My U.S Standard Tele sounds superb through this amp! Up to 5 on the master the sound is sparkly clean Fender and after that it gets "gritty" up to 10 which is a beautiful ballsy overdrive. My Rickenbacker 1997 Reissue also sounds great. Tremelo is very inspiring and can be tweaked for a number of sounds. Having played this amp for 3 months it puts my other gear to shame. Dead quiet too. Gets very loud for only 6 watts...but they're tube watts!!

This thing is almost 30 years old and point to point hand wired. Reliability isn't an issue however my amp tech (and ANY amp tech worth their salt) knows how to work on them and has a healthy opinion of vintage Fender gear.

Never dealt with Fender but this amp would be WAY out of warranty anyway.

I've been playing guitar for about 30 years now and own or have owned a lot of gear. This little amp lives up to all the hype and then some. A great practise amp and well worth the money. Now I've started thinking about a Silverface Princeton! If you can get one of these then do it, you will not regret it.

1971 Silverface purchased used in 1981. Features are well described in other reviews. Used for home jamming and recording, and parties. Would never guess it is 6 watts by the sound - that's what tubes and a Class A amp do for ya! It can play plenty LOUD for home/party/small venues. Blew the original speaker in the 90's and replaced it with a Pyle Driver - didn't really change the tone (thankfully). Otherwise, tubes and all are stock.

Play it with a standard Strat, a 70's-vintage Les Paul copy, and Washburn acoustic/electric. Sounds great with all. EXTREMELY clean sound! Whether playing clean, through my vintage Tube Screamer, or the Zoom 505 II, it sounds truly awesome!

Have had no problem whatsoever other than blowing the speaker, which given its age and my playing was clearly my fault. Its coming up on 34 years of age and still ROCKS!

N/A

Playing since early 70's, a bit of every genre. Would definitely look on eBay for another if this gem went missing.