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Fender Vibro Champ XD

Modelling Combo Guitar Amp from Fender

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Judas Judas

« Very good amp Working »

Published on 09/02/10 at 06:34
Small combo work digital modeling preamp and Class A tube amplifier (5W of power delivered by a small 6V6). There is also a small section in the 12AX7 preamp.

A small section of effects (tremolo, delay, reverb, chorus ... sitting or not) is also available, convenient to embellish a little without having to remove the pedalboard. The settings are limited (there&#39;s just a knob level).

Front guitar input, an output line out the back and the ability to easily disconnect the HP integrated (a bowl of 8 inches) for pluguer a baffle extension instead.

The manufacturing quality of the box fooled me, it exudes seriousness and solid! The lamps are well protected behind a small metal grid. The transformers are carefully dimensioned.

I put a few points off for lack of Stand By and possible effects loop. We could put points in less also for the lack of effect settings, and the fact that you can not combine them at will, but I will not do it, I see it more as a recognition on an amp considered amp working.

UTILIZATION

Configuration very simple. Is lit, allowed to heat a minute, it opens the volume and it&#39;s good.

We easily find a sound that should not fiddle with the knobs for 10 minutes.

I just quickly flew over the manual to see what is different voicings (more by curiosity than anything else).

Nothing special to repeat usage level!

SOUNDS

So personally I bought this little machine to be able to work quietly in the apartment (25m ² in the city) where I was totally unmanageable DC10 Mesa (I was fed up to the 2nd floor after every reweighed, to pass an hour to move the master of a pile of ass to find a volume compatible with my neighborhood ...)

I play pop / rock, some blues, lots of hard, a few metal parts and some jazz in my spare time.

Also having a 1x12 inch cab home (Celestion Century Vintage), I&#39;ll post two notices, one with HP original, and one on 12 inches.

I tested it with my 2 guitars (a Fender American Lonestar (Start HSS) and an American Standard Start)).

Original HP:

Sounds clear, although very (too) compressed (especially voice 1), remain very good and convincing. The crunch sound very "tubes". Lead sounds are a little rough but by limiting the gain one gets very good things.
The voicings are more Metal disappointing and sounded rather fuzzy. We feel that limits the bowl.

The Jazz Box by voicing cons is not great, 8-inch shows its limitations here.

With Original HP will give him a small 7 / 10. It is clearly limited in the bass, but should not expect miracles from an HP 8 inch.

12 inch

Once plugged into the cab outside, we rediscover the sounds of this amp! On the clean side is always found it compressed, but less pronounced. Crunches and the leads are much more airy, and metal or jazz voicings give the best of themselves with an HP dynamic bass.

I also pushed the deputy to plug on my DC10 2x12 inches, and it starts to growl severe. But the power starts to become limited to the driver 2 bowls (the amp delivers 5W into 4 ohms).

I put a 7 / 10, because my opinion on the amp "home", with the small integrated HP, but I urge the owners of this little toy to plug in a speaker more seriously.

A quick note on the effects last. They are a perfectly acceptable quality (special mention for the chorus and reverb are good). It&#39;s always nice to add a bit of impact when you bump its parts without having to plug an entire pedalboard. Anyway this amp due to its architecture is found to be inconsistent with a pedalboard coupling (no effects loop). It is rather intended to be used as a working amp, and therefore just a guitar input and shoo!

I tested an Xotic BB preamp input as well. The result was somewhat mixed (made nice voice on the 4, or a slight boost on the Voice 7 and 8, but it made not on the 1 because of compression, and it made it too rough voices of the most high gain (even dramatically lowering the input gain)).

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for a little over 6 months. I chose it after trying to power very usable in an apartment, its benefits (+ versatility voicings effects) and portability (about 10kg).

I have long compared with its big brother, the Super Champ XD. I finally chose the little brother because the Super Champ sounds more stiff and narrow to chamber volume. I would recommend instead the Super Scope for those who want to make a little scene, because at high volume it sounds much better and is more practical in those situations (HP 10-inch, 2 channels).

Anyway, I was amazed by the quality of these little amps. Which I&#39;m not modeling, I admit I was very skeptical at the beginning of this association modeling / lamps, but the Fender sign a masterstroke.

A very good amp work I keep thinking for a while!