Fender Champion 600

[tot_Ou_tard]

Thanks yet again tung! I looked at my switch & it looks exactly like your photo. Here is the wiring diagram that came with the Allen Heybooer OT.

[tot_Ou_tard]

Does anyone know the wiring scheme on the stock 600 OT? Which color wire goes where?

[oldguy]

OMG!!! You didn't take all the wires loose, did you???











Google it, there's gotta be a modder's site for those somewhere.

[tot_Ou_tard]

I did a bunch of googling but couldn't find the answer. I managed to figure it out by looking at the circuit board & making educated guesses.

Here is the correspondence (at least the amp works & sounds great)

Fender Champion primary: Blue & Red.

Blue = Heyboer Blue. Red = Heyboer Brown.

Fender Champion 4 Ohm speaker: Black & Yellow.

Black = Heyboer Black = Ground. Yellow = Heyboer Green.

There was no soldering done. The female clips were left on the circuit board & the stock wires clipped. The Heyboer OT wire were cut & connected via crimping connectors.

The mounting holes match up with the stock ones. Unfortunately the bell covers on the new OT are a little bit too big & bumps into the frame of the speaker.

We pivoted the OT using one of the stock holes & drilled a new hole in the chassis. It pivoted to a great location as there was no circuitry on the other side. My friend used a tap bit to create threads in the new hole, but using a nut on the other side would work well too.

I gave it a quick try & it sounded great. :::

Thanks tung!

I'll put the Standby switch in when I find out what gets wired to what.

[tot_Ou_tard]

I got some time to play the 600 with the new OT last night. It sounded great.

I don't do detailed reviews, because I'm still learning how to play & my opinions are likely to change as I get better but mainly because it would take away from focusing on playing.

That said, I'm very happy with the change. The amp seems to have woken up. I'd say that it just has "more" & leave it at that. Very sweet.

I can't wait to hear it through a cab.

[Andy]

guess I've been convinced not to buy a champ600, sounds like to much work and additional investment to get something to sound...good.

If I ever get into that level of tweaking mode, I probably would just go ahead and buy an amp head kit and build what I really want.

however thanks to this thread, there is some good info posted for reference.
in the end you still have a 6" spkr and I guess I'm spoiled by 12's

[tot_Ou_tard]

guess I've been convinced not to buy a champ600, sounds like to much work and additional investment to get something to sound...good.

No it sounded good to me to start with. I'm just using it as a way to become comfortable messing with my gear. It does sound better now, however.

[tunghaichuan***]

Check this thread out on the Epi forum:

http://forums.epiphone.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=5598

:

tung

[tot_Ou_tard]

Check this thread out on the Epi forum:

http://forums.epiphone.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=5598

:

tung

Very sweet looking indeed!

[tot_Ou_tard]

Curiousity killed the cat, but at least it hasn't seemed to fry my amph.

I couldn't find information on how to wire the Carling 3-position progressive toggle as an on/stanbdby/off switch, but I did notice that the stock on/off switch has four leads all of which are connected to wires so i just connected them to the Carling in the same order.

On is on : & off is off : but "standby" appears to be short for "standby & do nothing" as the amp is completely silent & the tubes are cold.

What should I have done? There is some mention of B+ on the web whatever that is.

[Danzego]

I picked up a Champ 600 late last summer and I don't think it's such a bad sounding amp at all.....depending on what you're playing through it with.

When I play my Epi LP through it, I wouldn't say the Champ gives you anything special at all. It comes across like a speaker with a volume knob, pretty much (which, I guess, is all it really IS ). Maybe I need to add some coloring effects or something. However, when I play my Fender US Std Strat through it, I think it sounds really good for a lil' amp. Perhaps it really accentuates the versatility and great sound of a Strat in the first place, I don't know. But it sounds good with the Strat to my ears.

I got a Bad Monkey last week and set up right, it adds some great sounds there, too. I just turned down the gain and matched my tone with the pedal off and on, then brought up the gain and added just a touch of high end. Voila!

[jim p]

Hi, I was just looking through the posts and wondered if anyone has tried by passing the feedback on the Champ 600. I was looking at the schematic today that Fender is nice enough to have on line and see as in most Fender amps this one has feedback. I am going to post adding a variable feedback to the Crate V5 so thought I would ask about this amp.
On the noise front see that they do not have DC filament supply and the Crate has a Pi filter with a choke in the plate supply both of those would reduce the noise on this amplifier. On a single ended amp noise on the plate supply comes right through the transformer to the speaker so a choke in the plate supply makes a big difference.

[Bilsdragon]

I bought this amp about a month ago to use at lunch at work. My friend and I use a little storage room at lunch time and have to keep the volume down. I knew I would drive the 600 with a pedal since there would be no crunch possible a low volume. We play Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam, Bowie, STP, and a couple of Alice in Chains songs to give you an example of the crunch tone that I was looking to create. I've used the amp with a bone stock DS-1, a Monte Allums modded TS9 Tube Screamer, and a Bad Monkey. Each pedal has their pluses, but the modded TS9 just gets the job done. The volume knob really can't be turned up past 4 with the pedal turned on or we'll be in the volume range to bother other people in the building just to give you my limits at work. It's a challenge to get a favorable tone at that volume. I tweak around on the pedal and the guitar to get the sounds I want. I keep the Bad Monkey at work since I usually use the other two with my V18 at home. I did swap the stock tubes for JJ's like Tung mentioned earlier and may even swap the ot for the stocker from an epi valave junior. Overall this little amp is great for what it is. If you need a bedroom amp or something portable, this thing is a good choice. Now my buddies V5 on the other hand is so shrill that I feel like stabbing myself with an ice pick when I hear it. I'm sure it will sound better after he tweaks it like some of the mods mentioned in the V5 thread.

[tot_Ou_tard]

For those that wish to know what negative feedback is & its affect on tone:

http://www.aikenamps.com/NegativeFeedback.htm

If you're going the negative feedback route, Jim, maybe you should also think
about removing the fixed tone stack.

BTW, since the Gries 5 is my new squeeze, I've brought the 600 to work. Fantastic amp for that! Good looking, unobtrusive, & since I don't crank it in that enviroment there is no amp noise to speak of. I took the NOS tubes out (they are now in the Gries) & I have a production JJ 83s & a Tung-Sol 6V6 in it now. It sounds great.

Hey bilsdragon, I just noticed your "bring an amph to work post".

[jim p]

My question is if anyone has used the amp with and without negative feedback. I see on the site 300Guitars there are some mods where they have removed R7 to take the feedback out. I was thinking you could change the value of R7, R23 and R3 then add a pot with a cap in series to set the level of feedback or have no feedback. Having no feedback is how the Valve Jr. and the Crate V5 amps are set up. Fender has almost always had feedback in there amplifier designs. For anyone who wants an overdriven sound no feedback is probably how they would want the amplifier set up.
For a low volume overdriven sound the cheep way to go would be to try adding an L-Pad in series with the speaker look for postings on this. I also noted where someone added a cap across there L-Pad to get some of the highs back although they did not post values and a pot and cap may be the better way to go.
A quick way to see how the amp is with no feed back is to short out R23 (47 ohm resistor) or put a 10uf cap accost it.
Another thing I saw on the 300 Guitars site is that the stock 6V6 has fried R10 on some amps then they talk about going to a higher wattage resistor after replacing the tube, I think I would rather fry a resistor vs. the output transformer; a resistor is a lot cheaper.
You could also consider converting the filament voltage to DC to reduce noise. At the 300 Guitars site they say that the routing of the filament tap from the transformer may need to be rerouted to reduce noise.
Also by looking at the schematic it looks like they have to high of a voltage on the screen grid all the old tube data sheets have it as 285 volts here it is probably 358 volts.
One thing to reduce noise from the outside world would be to change C3 to a 1.5uf from the stock 22uf to reduce amplification of 60Hz.
I don’t have one of these amps but wanted to find out about these things for general knowledge about this amplifier.
You could add reverb to this amp also but you will need to add a switch capacitor voltage doubler IC and supporting shrubbery this will also require rectifying the filament supply. Then you would follow what I have posted for adding reverb to the Crate V5 any interest let me know, thanks.