Fender Vibro Champ shines

[y2kc]

I had the champ sounding better than ever before last night. The secret was putting it on the dining room table.

My tip for the day for better sound is a dining room table. You read it here first.

 

y2kc

[Gitfiddler]

Haha!  I love it!  My Vibro Champ sits on top of a Fender Music Master amp...kinda like a table...and sounds great. 

 

[rockabilly69]

I keep mine on an Ottoman fold up bed! You think we should be sharing these tone secrets?  ???

[y2kc]

The cat is out of the bag.

[zguitar71]

A 20 foot cable is also recommended. ?

[Gitfiddler]

What are the mods you've done to your VC amp?  Feel free to pm me if its considered top secret 'champ' stuff. 

[Yooper]

The mighty Champ has earned its place at the table. I mean ON the table. Those of us too old to bend over learned this long ago.

[y2kc]

Yes the table is really the only mod this amp has had that I know of. John Sizos at Minstrel Music in Niles Il. has maintained it over the years and he keeps things very 

authentic. It does have a replaced speaker. In the Chicago area,Mr. Sizos is the man to see. He has taken care of my amps for 35 years or so.

I like this amp. 

[pressure]

I second the recommendation of John. He is one of the original guitar and amp guys in Chicago (he knows everybody and everybody knows him). And while your there just go up the street and get a steak sandwich at "Booby's".

[PunkKitty]

Here's another vote for John at Minstrel. He's a good guy.

[y2kc]

John is the guy other amp techs call. I know that because whenever I am there the phone is always ringing and he just tells them what to do. 

I also like when he explains what is wrong with my amp and I pretend to understand. The best thing is when I walk trough the door and he knows my name,

asks me how business is and drops what he is doing to fixes my amps. Yes Punk Kitty, I agree he is a good guy and a smart cookie. 

This is a business that must survive!

[DetroitBlues]

On 4/13/2020 at 1:31 PM, zguitar71 said:

A 20 foot cable is also recommended. ?

I actually use a 20’ cable.  I love how it takes off some of the highs.

[212Mavguy]

Classic amp single ended circuit, using the less is more way of thinking.  I love mine, it is a baby Bamm-Bamm butt kicking boogered up monster with a serious, serious attitude that gets way louder and screams more rasty nasty power chords yet waaay sweeter single note output than stock.  

Also the best first amp to get, roll tubes and speakers, take apart and smell the solder fumes, plug it in, warm it up, hear it, then repeat until it sounds like the tone in your head says it ought to.  Silver face champs even now are not rare, just more expensive compared to a throwaway Chinese amp to obtain a starting point of purchasing one.  Likely it will require some tech work no matter what for any tube amp that age to get it to where it deserves to be, retaining stock, modding, or ripping out the guts and completely rebuilding with all new parts and iron, which was my rabbit hole.  I did find gold at the end of it, but that hole took years of traveling that maze's twists and turns to get there.

As far as speakers go, in my Frank-en-Champ the best speaker by far (I rolled a few 8's) has been a 60's vintage University diffusicone 8.  That speaker is rare, spendy, and makes the amp sound like it has a bigger diameter speaker in it (it has a huge voice coil as well as a very wide frequency response 80-13000) with all the top end detail retained, and instead of beaming that high frequency mix of pitches and tones out the center 15 degrees like most cheap or more expensive speakers do, the uniquely designed cone disperses those frequencies much more evenly over a 90 degree swath.   If I were not so happy with the vintage unit in it, I would spend the $$ and go straight to a Tone Tubby 8 inch unit.  Because that amp's circuit is so simple, it is also easy to swap out cathode bypass and tone caps to see if there is improvement heard, but those dark blue original tone caps are pretty decent.   

The 470 ohm power tube resistor is a bit too low in value and makes the power tube red plate excessively and die much sooner.  The tone also suffers, being too wooly and mid focused..  Wall voltages have gone up since these amps were made.  A range centered around 680 ohms value for that cathode resistor works better.  

This is something that if the amp were mine I would do right away regardless of whether keeping the amp stock or modding it.  It will sound better...

It will be really easy for your amp guy to hook up a meter to measure cathode current draw and compare it to what the tube's specs call for.  A lot of folks that swear by running that tube at over 100% dissipation is the way to go have not heard that same amp with the higher value resistor in place and causing that tube to run at a more "power tube safe,"  less than 100% rate.  

[y2kc]

Mavguy,

 

I was thinking those same things but then I put the amp on the dining room table and all was good.

y2kc