Champ25 Mods??

[Jaicen]

Has anyone got any experiences relating to modifying this thing??
It's basically a solid state pre-amp feeding a deluxe output stage using a pair of 6L6GT's and a 12AX7 PI.
I used to own it, but I sold it to my cousin and he's looking for something a little better out of it. It has two main problems:
1: The pre-amp is not very good!
2: The output stage needs to be really pushed to make it clip.

So I was thinking of two possible mods, firstly i'd like to replace the 6L6's with something that will output less wattage and/or clip earlier. Is there a drop in replacement?
Secondly, I was thinking of adding a third, all valve channel and a manual DPDT toggle switch to select between the original clean and the new vintage channel (a real Deluxe pre). The champ already has the HT and heater taps, so it would be relatively easy to add another 12AX7. Any suggestions??

[Satamax]

May be you could stuff 6V6 in there if B+ is not too high!

[Jaicen]

I think it's around 400v, which is probably a tad high for 6v6's is it not??

[TD_Madden]

should be OK either with NOS or JJ 6V6s. Make sure you adjust the bias for this!

[Satamax]

Deluxes run them at 415!

[Ben N]

Just because it has taps for heaters, doesn't mean it has enough current to add a 12ax7. I think that trying to turn one of these into a Deluxe or whatever is asking for trouble, unless you plan to gut the thing and basicaly build yourself a new amp from scratch, which you can do just as well without tearing this one apart. One Deluxe-ish mod I imagine would help a bit would be to put a resistor in the power supply to get some sag. 6V6s (JJs) may be god, too, but the PI is knd of anemic, and will not push them very hard on its own. Maybe you can modify it for more gain, I don't know.

FWIW, I think that the clean channel on this amp is very nice--chrystalline. Sounds great with a line level chorus/delay in the FX loop. Not a blues amp at all. If you want some power amp saturation, you can either put some kind of gain stage in the FX loop, boost the input or use a separate preamp. I have run a Sansap GT2 straight into the FX return, and I have used a Vox tube buffered fx loop in the ams fx-loop to add some umph. Both worked pretty well.

The dirty channel I don't like at all--no definition, no dynamics, at any setting--but there must be someone out there who does.

Ben