One of the more renowned amps of the Paul Rivera era of Fender, the Super Champ certainly earned its title. According to the serial number, mine is an early 1982 edition(the picture above is not mine). With two 6V6 power tubes, this "champ" puts out 18 watts through a 10" speaker. I believe mine is still the original Electro-voice. Apparently this was quite a big deal as Fender was typically using Jensen and Eminence speakers at the time. It seems funny that this became the "Super Champ" as it seems more like a "Mini Deluxe Reverb." Just a thought. Different from the older champs usually around 5 watts through a much smaller speaker, the Super Champ is certainly powerful enough to take gigging. And if one were to drive it through a decent 1x12 or 2x12 cabinet, you would have a seriously loud amp! Everything in the amp is tube except a solid state rectifier. It appears that Fender is finally reissuing their vintage amps with tube rectification again! During this period and for awhile to follow, Fender, along with many other companies stopped using tube rectifiers as solid state proved to be more reliable and quieter. My preference remains with tube rectification, as it gives a nice natural compression while playing. Perhaps not so audible, but a great change in the touch.
The line out feature for recording is fantastic. It does require that you unplug the speaker however, so you can only hear yourself through the studio monitors.
My only real complaint is the lead channel. 1.) Tremolo was taken away. 2.) Whenever I turn on the lead channel, the reverb basically disappears. 3.) Clipping. The lead channel actually sounds fantastic. But once you take the lead level over 8, the clipping begins. Especially the bottom end really starts to fart out.
If anyone knows of a solution to problems 2 or 3, please feel free to write in!
These small issues are really insignificant for the amp as a whole, which will remain part of my fleet of amps for a long time.
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