N.A. D. Super Champ XD

[ZMAN]

Super Champ XD in the house! Picked it up today at a Truck Stop. LOL.
Met a guy who contacted me about an ad I placed on Kijijji. $225 and it still has all the tags and manuals. I though he said he had the original box but no need. Mint Mint condition. I am having guests for dinner so I won't get to try it out until tomorrow. I am pretty happy with the condition, and the fact that right now they are 329 new plus 13% Tax.
I will give it a good workout and report later.
I was looking for a better sounding travel amp. I am looking at the fact that I can use it without the need for pedals. Just my guitar and cord. I have heard that the Rajun Cajun (Duffy) works super in them but I will try the stock speaker and see how it goes.
To be continued....

[Robert]

Congrats! Looking forward to hearing how you like this amph.

[Katastrophe]

Coolness! I hope you enjoy it when it comes in. Post pics!

[oldguy]

Congrats! I think you'll like it. I love mine, bone stock, but I rarely crank it above half-volume. BTW, if you ever run it through a 4x12 cab, it kicks.:thumbsup

[guitarhack]

Congratulations! I've been running mine through an Avatar 212 with the "Hellatone" speakers and love it.

[ZMAN]

Congratulations! I've been running mine through an Avatar 212 with the "Hellatone" speakers and love it.
I have an Avatar 2 12 with Eminence Legends. I was planning on hooking it up today for a shot.
I will have some time today to give it a workout. Just wondering, any need for the foot pedal?

Question for you amp gurus. I am looking at the owners manual for mine and I see it rated at 20 watts into 8 ohms. I see that in several places. Yet it is listed as a 15 watt amp. Is there a reason for this?
Also I see it looks as if Fender first released the amp n 2007. Can you tell from the serial number what the date of manufacture was? I have heard there is a code on the chassis but i thought there might be an easier way.
I asked the seller how long he owned it and he mentioned a year, but one of the hang tags he gave me is a Long and Mquade (Canadian retail chain) price tag that has "used" on it and a price of 299.

Edit: I took a look at the online brochure and it has been updated. It must have been a typo on the 20 watts into 8 ohms on my early version.

[ZMAN]

Well I finally got around to firing it up and all I can say is WOW. I can't believe Fender has put so much into such a small package. And as you guys said they just sound killer through a 2/12 cab. I was surprised that some of the voice settings that I though would not be to my likeing were amazing. I tried setting 13 which is supposed to be Metal, with a little bit of slap back delay into my 2/12 Avatar with Eminence Legends, and was right in the Joe Bonamassa territory that I get with my Marshall DLS100. That blew me away.
As Duffy mentioned, and youtube vids I have seen with the Rajun Cajun I bet the amp will sound great all by itself.
I only messed with it for about a 1/2 hour but as far as I am concerned it is the best 200 bucks I have spent on equipment. Hell I spent as much on my DD20 Pedal.
The only draw back I can see is that you really need to tweak each voice individually, but I am pretty sure you can end up with a few really great set ups that you can dial in quickly.
I see on the net there are some great charts so you can dial in a specific tones quickly.
Being in the 24lb range also makes it really portable.
I only used a couple of my Gibson LPs so far but I am liking the sustain. My 96 Standard, and my Gold Top both sound amazing. I have yet to try any of my Strats.
I purchased it to take with me when I travel to Maine, and I had thoughts of leaving it there. But as Duffy said to me, I will have trouble leaving it behind.
I have a Vox Pathfinder 15 R there, that doesn't even compare to this amp.
This amp is for everyone. I am sure it will fit any style of play.
What is really cool is you try a voice, and it sounds just OK then you tweak it a little, and I mean a little and it just jumps out at you. A lot of Ahhhh moments with this amp.
Yes I am loving it!

[Robert]

Great to hear! I have yet to try this amp.

[ZMAN]

Yes Robert, I also wanted to be able to "plug" and play and not have a lot of pedals etc. I am finding I am using mostly OD, and delay/reverb lately so this fits perfectly. Gain settings, and voices that emulate overdriven tweed, blackface and british amps is about all you need.
This isn't a toy by the way. These are real quality effects. When I can compare it to fulltone pedals, Marshal 100 watt amps and Fender blackface it kicks donkey. I am wondering now if Fender makes a larger wattage head with these functions? I will have to take a look.

[hubberjub]

I've heard great things about that amp. Congrats. That's a great price too.

[NWBasser]

Congratulations ZMAN!

Glad you found what you wanted in a small tube combo.

[Katastrophe]

I am wondering now if Fender makes a larger wattage head with these functions? I will have to take a look.


The Deluxe Vintage Modified 40 watt combo and the BandMaster Vintage Modified 40 watt head are in the same series...

Paul Riario of Guitar World demos one. The title is wrong, but the amph is right:

5XB9sVLXW_Q

Greg Koch of Fender putting one through its paces:

Djl2s0RVo5M

[Duffy]

Zman, I really like voices 3 and 8 for quick and easy sounds - not hyper gain voices either, but way more low gain. But I agree about the high gain voices, they are great.

I am always finding new sounds with this amp. It really has some depth of field to it.

As far as other higher power Fender amps I don't think they have a "so called" all tube amp that has a lot of amp voices and effects. They have two channel versions of the VM and a hybrid really expensive Cyber Twin SE with two preamp tubes but a solid state power amp; it's stereo 120 watts hybrid, motorized control knobs, lots of amp models, etc., over 1200 US. But nothing like the SCXD.

Glad to see you reigned in that amp. Sounds brand new or almost brand new.

[oldguy]

Glad you're liking it, ZMAN!:thumbsup

One of the things I really like is the fact you can get that nice tube amph feedback at lower volumes w/ a good humbucker guitar, and really make it howl w/ a semi-hollow w/ 'buckers. And you can control the madness w/ the volume controls and your pick attack. As you said, the effects are quality, also. That was one big difference I found between the SCXD and a Vyper I tried. Maybe the Peavey was a lemon, but I really didn't care for the effects after I tried the Fender.

[ZMAN]

The only thing I am having trouble with is that it seems to be very trebly. I am liking the voices that are fairly clean.
With the Rajin Cajun do you find there is less treble and more bottom end.
I guess it might just be the 10 inch stock speaker. I really sounds a lot better through my Avatar 2/12 cab.
I tried it with a real cross section of guitars and I like it best with HB guitars.
The band master series just has the effects built in. I think if they built a 30 to 40 watt version of the same amp in a head cofiguration with the voices and the effects it would be a huge seller.
Like any other amp it will take a while to find the sweet spot, but with this one you can find many sweet spots so it will be fun.

[Duffy]

Zman, check out the fenderforum.com where there is a gigantic SCXD thread. They talk about your speaker concern there and there are a lot of opinions. Bill M. suggested the Ragin' Cajun after a lot of testing, so I put one in almost immediately after getting mine. Massive magnet compared to the diminutive one on the stock speaker, plus over 100Db sensitivity. This equals a lot more volume and sounds a lot better to me, for a small amout invested on the mod that I did myself. Other guys have tried other speakers as well to good effect.

I think a ten inch speaker is going to have less bass just based on the design of the speaker: I don't think a ten inch speaker can develop the amplitude (is that the word) of a twelve inch speaker at the same frequency and wavelength. That's why the Delta Blues fifteen inch sounds so great and full - fifteen inch speaker, and a lot of guys like bass amps with eighteen inch speakers. But a lot of people like ten inch speakers. Therefore, I would think that a really well designed ten inch speaker is going to be able to produce some great bass tones compared to a less well designed twelve inch one. The cabinet design also has a lot to do with the way the speaker sounds.

Your avatar cabinet sounds better probably because it is better; better build, better speakers, moving more air. Those big magnets on those nice speakers you can get probably help the speakers move more air, more efficiently.

Those ten inch bass speakers definitely do their job beautifully. They hold together the Low B on the five strings without any cracking and popping sounds. Most all of the fifteen inch bass amps that I have played can't handle a strong Low B string played loud without sounding very poorly - of course this is hitting it hard. More of the ten inch ones can. I have a Marshall MB30, in the house amp, with a ten inch speaker in it that handles the Low B on my Schecter Stilletto Elite with EMG humbuckers and and active preamp, all the way to the ceiling - no cracking, popping, or discordant distortion.

I think it is a challenge to make a good ten inch speaker to handle bass wavelengths well. Well, probably not a challenge, because they figured out how to do it already. Probably more of a challenge to keep the price competetive, tuff being able to stay in business as it is.

I still think the stock SCXD speaker sounds WAY better than the ten inch Vypyrs I've played. Subjective on my part, but the Vypyrs just look really cheaply built - no back? What's up with that? Plus the models on the smaller Vypyrs I played didn't sound very good when compared side by side to the actual amps they were supposed to model. How well the SCXD does I don't know, but they say on the fenderforum that it does quite well considering its limitations. I don't think it sounds like my expensive limited edition tweed Hot Rod Deluxe with the Jensen P12n speaker in it that produces real smooth low end response and has a 29oz Alnico magnet on it, but I should A/B them. The SCXD sits above my HRDX in my stack of amps next to my bed.

I've got the Egnater Tweaker, an outstanding head, and I am having the opposite problem: I can't seem to get great single coil sounds out of it on the higher gain settings. I need to tweak it more and see what I can do. I actually want to get a set of noiseless pickups for one of my strats strictly for real high gain amps and pedals. Noise.

That Tweaker combo is supposed to be quite a nice little amp as well, but I'm sure it is more expensive than the SCXD and I think it has a twelve inch real Celestion speaker in it.

[ZMAN]

Thanks Duffy I have been to that thread on the FF. It is massive. I don't plan on too many changes, I will hardly play the thing if I leave it at my daughters. I does sound a lot better than the vox pathfinder. I will do some research on the different choices for speakers. Two sessions wirth the amp and I have found about 3 or 4 voices that I like. I will also take a look at BillM's charts on settings for this amp.
A funny thing about this amp. It really sounds like an old practice amp I bought in 96. It was a Champ 110. It was a 25 watt SS Fender with a pretty good gain channel, reverb, output jack, and headphone jack, and a special design 10 inch speaker. I sold it to my Nephew. That was a great little amp for sure.

[NWBasser]

Duffy,

In order to reproduce the long-wavelength forms, 10-inch bass speakers are designed with much greater Xmax than guitar speakers. Xmax is the back and forth distance that the cone travels. This is why a bass will blow a guitar speaker fairly easily, because the guitar speaker reaches the limits of its excursion much quicker than a bass-specific driver.

This also why a guitar played through a bass amp sounds a bit sterile. The drivers aren't designed for the small amount of movement that a guitar generates.

I think cabinet design plays a fairly large role in dynamic response. My old Roland Cube 30 had a 10, but had a good bass response.

[Duffy]

Right NWBasser. I have heard about long excursion speakers and their ability to push more air and handle bass better. However, I don't think that a long excursion speaker can increase the amplitude of the wavelength. It can reproduce a longer wavelength better possibly and definitely give you more "thump", but I don't think it can increase the amplitude and give you as deep of a bass tone as a fifteen or eighteen inch speaker of the same ratio long excursion speaker.

It is confusing though, because my Klipsch eight inch subwoofer I added to my home theater system sounds really good. Better than the bigger subwoofers I tried that were within my price range. I paid more for the Klipsch but it has more controls and switches on it than any of the other ones and it is a down firing one. A down firing one might use the floor to create a larger "sounding board" for the sound waves to get attenuated by and then re-radiated by, causing it to sound like a larger speaker. Plus, for a bass speaker wavelength to really sound correct I have heard that the room you are in has to be pretty big in order for the bass wavelength to fully reach the actual measuremed wavelength.

[ZMAN]

I lstened to a pretty good comparison of the stock speaker vs 4 other 10 inch eminmence speakers including the RC and the copperhead on the Gear page, and the stock speaker sounded best to me and 4 or 5 other people who responded. I saw a vid of Don Anderson doing The thrill is gone. I downloaded a backing track and fired up the SCXD. Voice 13, reverb/delay, treble 0 and bass 10. Used my LP standard, 335 and GT, even tried a CV50s Strat. All sounded amazing.
Of course it might be my aging ears. LOL.
Every time I fire this thing up it just amazes me. Oh and I tried a little boost from my Fulldrive II by Fulltone and it kicked ***.
Not sure now what to do about a speaker swap.

[ZMAN]

After rigorous testing I found that the stock Electro Harmonix 12AX7 was still in the Phase inverter position. It had become a little microphonic, so I tracked down a local tube shop, and picked up a couple of 12AX7s. I got a Tung Sol Reissiue, and a JJ ECC83S/high performance gold pin 12AX7. I tried both and found the gold pin to be a little too creamy. The Tung sol is more like it. I still am liking the stock speaker and I don't know if it is worth the 90 dollar Canadian to upgrade. (I know there are many opinions on that).
I am also stoked that I found a great local supplier of tubes that has great prices and a ton of selection. That is all they deal in. Mostly mail order.
The guy mentioned that the stock 6v6 EHs also hold it back but I am a firm believer in "if it ain't broke don't fix it" . Changing them would also mean I have to change the bias and again I am happy the way it sounds now. Also the over active treble has been subdued. I really love this amp with HB guitars.

[Duffy]

A lot of people keep the stock speaker in there.

I immediately upgraded mine based on the info I had at hand and WANTED to do the mod. I wanted more volume and got it. Plus the sound is great. This is a great little amp.

As I said before, as time goes by you will "learn" new things about your amp. It is a deep well of awesome sounds and you will constantly be learning new ways to bring out new beautiful sounds. I see that some places are selling them again for 299 US, new.

I plan on playing my black Blacktop strat with maple board thru the SCXD this weekend. It sits right here above my HRDX next to my bed and above my laptop, ready to rock. I'm plugged into my Tweaker with my new Epi SG Faded right now enjoying this awesome but inexpensive guitar.

Everybody raves about the Classic Vibes, and I have two, but this Epi Faded is a real nice guitar, quality build, great pickups, very nice slim taper neck unlike my '66 copy School of Rock Epi SG that has a chunkier neck that is also really a nice neck. I think the SG is one of my favorite types of guitar and I'm appreciating them more lately. They have that iconic look and a really good vibe like the classic Les Paul has that iconic vibe going on. I'm also playing my white Squier Deluxe strat today, that I re-strung with Fender pure nickel "nines" last night. It sounds great, but definitely toned down from the D'darrios, almost slightly muffled, but you get excellent harmonics and the strings are producing a very full and satisfying sound in all switch positions.

Voices three and eight are two of my favorite voices on the SCXD, especially for humbuckers. The Tweaker works really well for me with humbucker guitars too. I really like the overdrive the humbuckers get out of it, plus it cleans up nicely as well. I use a good reverb pedal in front of it and it sounds great, the Tweaker that is.

I am later going to be stringing up my new black Blacktop strat with some D'darrio nines. There is a real good music store two blocks from my house that serves all of the local professionals and passers thru. That's where I played all of the Blacktops and hand picked my strat version in beautiful black and chrome, a classic color vibe that looks way better in person than in the advertising. You should hear it thru a good amp. I'm sure it will light up the SCXD like it does my HRDX. Maybe later today or over the weekend.

I will also be putting up some pictures but it is raining strongly today.

Have fun with your SCXD Z. I'm sure it has your uncompromised attention.

How is it standing up to the test of time? Any problems with it? Did you say one of the preamp tubes was microphonic? It will be interesting to hear how you like the one you have in there now and if it will be staying in.

[ZMAN]

I really like the one I have in there now. Here is what the Tubestore says about it. It is like my own little private tube store. They are about 10 blocks from my Fathers house and I visit him at least once a week.
When I went to pick up the tubes they said that if they get 2 people a day at the pickup desk it is a lot. They are 99% mail order.
http://thetubestore.com/tungsol12ax7.html

[Tone2TheBone]

Wondering if any of you guys are still playing these SCXDs.....

[Algonquin]

:wave:

My only regret is that I didn't order two!

[Tone2TheBone]

Good to see someone still plays one. :)