Sometimes you don't gotta shake the walls. In 2006 Fender brought out the Champion 600 reissue. A little bit about that: From 1948-53 Fender made a 3 watt amplifier called the Champion 600. Aside from name and appearance, the new Champion 600 is nothing like that. It more closely resembles the Champ that Fender starting producing in '64 and phased out around '81, thought it's been modified to have a little less gain and has no controls for tone.

So really this amp isn't a reissue of anything, but whatever. I had an old Champ back in the day, and this is close enough for government work.

As with all my amps, the first thing I did was to remove the tubes and replace them with ones of known good quality. This has a JJ in the preamp section and a Tung-Sol in the power stage. I also replaced the speaker, though I don't know that that mod was the best bang for the buck. Finally, the amps came with some tan microfiber cloth as a speaker cover and that really dampened the sound. I bought a yard of brown grill cloth and replaced that. It sounds and looks better.

The big down side of the amp is the 6" speaker sort of chokes the sound. I'm toying with the idea of building up a custom chassis so that I can fit it with a 10", but until then it drives my 4x12 cabinet well enough.