Herr Shapeif your mate lives in/can get to London, this, from today's Gumtree, might be of interest, given all the Champ love goin' on.

benadrian wrote:I have never once been unhappy with my silverface Champ.Ben+1. I managed to track down a vibro champ for like $125 a few years back, but I don't think you can do that any more unless you get extremely lucky. Silverface champ plus pretty much any OD pedal, even a relatively crappy one, equals best bedroom amp ever.

johnnyshape wrote:A friend of mine has asked me to recommend her a practice amp from these three:From those three, that being the operative phrase...I'd go with the Cube. My dad's got one that I've messed around with on a handful of occasions. For goofing around at home, it's good. Wide range of sounds, etc.At home, I use (and love) a Laney LC15, which is probably pretty cheap on your side of the pond. Best dirty sound from a practice amp, best I've heard anyway. I'm planning on modding mine to make it into a preamp that I could use for playing live. No effects or even reverb for that matter, but it's basically the tiniest JCM800 you could hope for.

i've got the Roland Cube and really like it.. very cheap, light, lots of flexibility.. usable tremolo, reverb, delay. Useless cheesy phaser, flange, chorus but you can't have everything. It's so light and small i've even carried it in the guitar case.

I would think that your Laney 15 watt would sound plenty big through a 4x12 as opposed to the 10 speaker. I'm guessing it could work just fine as a gigging amp when hooked up to more speakers, especially speakers rated for low wattage and with high efficiency. Have you tried this yet? I would be curious to know how it sounded as my 18 watt is all the amp I would ever need when it's played through a 4x12.

I have a Pathfinder 10. The circuit sounds good, though I've been meaning to replace the 6.5" speaker with one of those hemp cone Eminences for less fart/fizz at 'high' volumes.

DvdWr wrote:benadrian wrote:I have never once been unhappy with my silverface Champ.BenApologies for quoting a ten year old comment! But since this thread is live... Does the champ still hold up given how many great small valve amps are available now? I can pick up a silverface champ but it's now a more expensive option than small Vox/Blackstar/Laney/etc valve combo options. I'm currently using a Laney LC15 or a Traynor YGM with an attenuator but love the idea of a small, grab and go, good quality home amp.I still love my Champ, though it is no longer "my champ". I gifted it to a very good friend in return for some above-and-beyond actions that helped me very much. The Champ almost always worked exceptionally, and when it didn't it was super easy to repair and tweak. As a gear nerd, this was important to me. I also had an Epiphone Valve Jr for a while, and while it was fun and sounded pretty good, it was not easy to work on and had a lot of little issues from cheap construction. I suppose it also depends on what feature sets you want. I was fine playing clean and adding pedals when needed. Cranking the Champ was still too loud for casual practice in a home with other humans. So if substantial distortion is desired at a speaking volume and you don't want to use a pedal, then it's not the right amp. Some people like having delays or reverbs. So yeah, if you want included bells and whistles, it's not the right amp.What am I doing now that I've given my Champ away? Well, I have a Princeton Reverb if I want the clean reverby fender sound, and I live in a house so I can usually get away with playing it at a standard level. I also got a little Quilter 1x8" combo from my work. The sound is solid, though not spectacular, but it's light, tiny, and super reliable. Finally, I make amp models at my day job, so I can plug a modeler that I made into headphones or studio monitors if silent or low volume playing is needed.Cheers!

DvdWr wrote:Thanks Ben!I don't mind using pedals for drive cos I play clean 90% of the time but the problem I have with the Traynor is it has so much headroom that an overdrive pedal doesn't seem to make the front end 'work' at all, which feels hard to play. Can you boost the champ into drive at low levels or does it entirely rely on clipping in the pedal itself?I say it's more the latter. You could use a dirty boost pretty well. A straight up clean boost probably wouldn't add too much dirt if the amp volume was left low.

I just picked up a Vox AC10 used for $300 not too long ago. It's kind of like a 10 watt AC30, but the first tube stage is replaces wit ha MOSFET. For the price, it is awesome. It;s a god practice amp, and almost loud enough for gigging. Plus, if you like the Vox look, it will look good in a non-music room.

The smaller 80s Marshall MOSFET leads, the Crate GX combos without built in effects, blue line Peavey Envoys, although the inputs and pots are trash, and those Pathfinders are where it's at. Would record with any of them.