Fender Champ - Super Champ

Super Champ

In 1982, in order to combat its decreasing amp sales, which at that time was around 10,000 units per year, Fender hired Paul Rivera (of Rivera Amplification fame) and ask him to help design amplifiers with a modern sound. Even though he did not personally create the new designs his direction of the engineering team, headed by Mark Wentling, resulted in some legendary amps. The result included the Super Champ, featuring a 10" speaker and new circuitry, including spring reverb, master volume, a switchable extra gain stage for a 'lead' effect, and a mid boost switch. In order to increase gain and cut costs, the Super Champ utilized 1x 12AX7 for the first and second stage preamp, a 1x 12AT7 for spring reverb driver tube, while a triple-triode 6C10 compactron is used for three functions; one as a third stage preamp for even more gain, one as the phase inverter (instead of two for most class-AB circuits), and one as recovery for the spring reverb. When the volume knob is pulled, some signal from the 12AT7 reverb driver is re-routed, resulting in higher gain. An optional two-button footswitch allowed for gain switching and reverb on/off. Two 6V6 power tubes provide it with 18 RMS watts. The cabinet was finished in black Tolex, with a black control panel and silver grille cloth. A more expensive version was available, factory-fitted with a Fender-branded EV Force 10 speaker instead of the usual Fender Blue Label. The Super Champ was sold until 1986.