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Hi All,
As I've got a little more time on my hands than usual these days, I'm spending time in my shop doing back burner stuff. My next build is gonna be a Super Champ. I've repaired about a half-dozen of these over the years however, I have a friend I play with who has one at his house that I usually play through and I've really gotten to love this amp. Of the Rivera-era Fender amps, which I own quite a few, I think this one (SC) is the best - for what it is - or maybe the Princeton II. Now, this is not to say the others cannot be good amps with a little help, they can but straight out of the box, the Super Champ is a very, very good amp, in its class.
Of course, the Super Champ has its issues: the small box it's in and the 9" reverb pan. But the main problems for me are the lack of an affordable 6C10 compactron triple-triode tube and the fact that the Lead Level (distortion/overdrive channel) borrows so heavily from the reverb circuit, a real compromise in the reverb sound and also doesn't sound all that great anyway.
I've decided to use 2x 12AX7a tubes instead of the 6C10 compactron. The chassis I've chosen has the room and the power transformer has the capacity for one more triode's heater. Now, I won't have to have a compromise reverb sound when I use the Lead Level channel and I can be free to have/design any kind of overdrive I like as I'll be departing from the original design here. Does anyone have any good ideas of circuits to check out in this direction. I'm after a good overdrive sound, not a flat out wild distortion.
I'm not going to be using the proprietary footswitch which is controlled by a Vactrol. But my understanding of the function of this circuit is that the Volume control (with a DPDT switch on it) has to be pulled out first for the footswitch to be able to switch between clean and Lead Level channels, is that correct? Without the footswitch, I can eliminate a handful of power supply parts for the -6.2 Vdc Vactrol circuit. So it'll be a somewhat streamlined, simplified version of the SC but I'm sure I'll re-complicate it when I get the overdrive circuit perfected.
Does anyone have a speaker recommendation for this Super Champ amp? With the cab I've chosen, I cannot fit the EVM-10L speaker (which I prefer) in the cab with the reverb tank being in the way so I'll have to audition various other speakers. I'd like something that isn't too far away from that EVM sound; in my world, one of the great speakers of all time.
Any comments and or opinions are, of course, welcome especially those of you who have travelled down that highway of building your own Super Champ in the past. It's always great to learn from the experiences of others who have been there before.
Bob M.
As I've got a little more time on my hands than usual these days, I'm spending time in my shop doing back burner stuff. My next build is gonna be a Super Champ. I've repaired about a half-dozen of these over the years however, I have a friend I play with who has one at his house that I usually play through and I've really gotten to love this amp. Of the Rivera-era Fender amps, which I own quite a few, I think this one (SC) is the best - for what it is - or maybe the Princeton II. Now, this is not to say the others cannot be good amps with a little help, they can but straight out of the box, the Super Champ is a very, very good amp, in its class.
Of course, the Super Champ has its issues: the small box it's in and the 9" reverb pan. But the main problems for me are the lack of an affordable 6C10 compactron triple-triode tube and the fact that the Lead Level (distortion/overdrive channel) borrows so heavily from the reverb circuit, a real compromise in the reverb sound and also doesn't sound all that great anyway.
I've decided to use 2x 12AX7a tubes instead of the 6C10 compactron. The chassis I've chosen has the room and the power transformer has the capacity for one more triode's heater. Now, I won't have to have a compromise reverb sound when I use the Lead Level channel and I can be free to have/design any kind of overdrive I like as I'll be departing from the original design here. Does anyone have any good ideas of circuits to check out in this direction. I'm after a good overdrive sound, not a flat out wild distortion.
I'm not going to be using the proprietary footswitch which is controlled by a Vactrol. But my understanding of the function of this circuit is that the Volume control (with a DPDT switch on it) has to be pulled out first for the footswitch to be able to switch between clean and Lead Level channels, is that correct? Without the footswitch, I can eliminate a handful of power supply parts for the -6.2 Vdc Vactrol circuit. So it'll be a somewhat streamlined, simplified version of the SC but I'm sure I'll re-complicate it when I get the overdrive circuit perfected.
Does anyone have a speaker recommendation for this Super Champ amp? With the cab I've chosen, I cannot fit the EVM-10L speaker (which I prefer) in the cab with the reverb tank being in the way so I'll have to audition various other speakers. I'd like something that isn't too far away from that EVM sound; in my world, one of the great speakers of all time.
Any comments and or opinions are, of course, welcome especially those of you who have travelled down that highway of building your own Super Champ in the past. It's always great to learn from the experiences of others who have been there before.
Bob M.
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