The Fender 57 Custom Champ Guitar Amp Combo is a 1-channel guitar amplifier combo featuring a power output of 5W, a 6V6 power tube, a pine cabinet, and a lacquered tweed design. Renowned for flexibility, ease-of-use and a knockout tone, this amplifier delivers the classic sound heard on thousands of recordings. A wide variety of playable tones are incorporated into this amplifier that is capable of delivering crisp, classic cleans to naturally compressed overdrive.
A 12AY7 preamp tube matched to a classic 6V6 power amp tube and 5Y3GT rectifier tube work together to generate this overdrive. The 8” 4Ohm Weber Special Design alnico speaker stays true to the classic Champ sound, compressing to create fat tone at higher levels while the hand-wired circuit includes yellow coupling capacitors chosen for their authentically vintage Fender tone. This amp also retains classic Champ visual appeal in lacquered tweed with a chickenhead knob, a leather handle and 1/4” inputs for low or high output instruments.
The main features of the Fender 57 Custom Champ Guitar Amp Combo include:
This is a really nice little amp. It's compact yet punchy and with a wide variety of tones. This is a small enough amp to easily fit into a home and it is so well made it's like a piece of nice furniture. Please note, though, that a 5W tube amp is loud for a domestic setting. You won't get those amazing saturated tube tones at a home listening volume, not without pushing the amp with a pedal. I'm not a fan of Klon-type pedals but that would work if you like the tone. I have used a Jam Pedals Tubedreamer to get some nice additional tones at reasonable volume. My Greer Amps Lightspeed didn't push it enough with single coils. Overall I prefer the sound of my Telecaster through this than my Strat, although both sound good. My Gibson LP Special with P90s didn't sound great at all - too boxy and shut-in. For me it's worth it for the sound it makes with the Tele, though. Could you get better value for the price of this amp? Probably but that's not the point. You are getting THIS amp for this money and I'm happy with the value proposition of the product. My only problem with the order was that even though I am in the UK and DV247/Musicstore has a big warehouse in the UK, the Champ was sent from Germany, with a European plug attached. Many modern amps have an IEC plug and you can just swap the lead, no problem. Beware, this is not the case with a Fender Champ. The lead is wired directly into the amp. What's more the mains plug on the lead was a modern moulded type. The only way of removing the supplied plug was to cut the cable (which I did). I then put on a UK plug. This was a concern as I had to do this before being able to check the amp worked OK. If I'd had to return the amp, I suspect there would have been problems with terms and conditions, or warranty, or both. So beware ordering these amps when you don't know where the amp will be supplied from. I thought I was ordering from a UK supplier. Luckily, I'm keeping the amp. It's great.