Fender Super Champ XD Vintage Modified Guitar Combo Amplifier (15 Watts, 1x10 In.)

Feature:
At $300, with a tube amp you're not expecting any fancy features. Surprisingly, the Super Champ XD has a decent list of features. Though limited in scope, the effects sound quite good. The amp also has a line out jack.

Quality:
Very cleanly assembled. Buy hey; it's cheap amp, so I'm not comparing the fit and finish to something costing 8 or 10 times as much. I think that such an amp is too inexpensively constructed to be expected to survive the rigors of the road. It's a practice/home recording amp.

Value:
Pretty tough to beat at the price.

Desirability:
Anything this cool for this price is definitely worth checking out.

Sound:
I was skeptical as to whether a $300 tube amp could be any good. I've owned lots of great tube amps, '69 plexi Super Lead, '62 Fender Bassman, '73 Super Reverb, JCM800 2203, Suhr Badger and many others. My other fave cheapie Fender is an early '90s tweed Pro Junior, which was also around $300 when I bought it. I went to the local music store to try out the Super Champ XD, plugged in a Telecaster, and I was floored at what a great sounding amp it was - especially at that price point. I immediately bought that amp and ordered a second for my brother. It's an ideal practice amp if you're into more of an old-school Fender sound. The preamp digitally models Fender tweed and blackface tone very convincingly. I guess Fender should know better than anyone how their amps are supposed to sound. As far as the other Voicings (channel 2) go, well, they're good but not excellent. Buy it for the Fender sounds. The effects are relatively few, but they all sound good. I really like the "slap" (short) delay and the tremolo effects. Another reviewer said that the amp's clean channel reminds him of a blackface Princeton. Couldn't agree more; I owned a '64 Princeton. This amp definitely gets you in the general ballpark of the Princeton clean tone. The stock speaker sounds quite good; but I'd probably upgrade before recording with this amp. It would be fine as is for gigs. And it sounds really impressive through a decent extension speaker cabinet. I was amazed at how much more punch and detail I got with the amp plugged in to a closed cabinet with a Celestion Vintage 30 12" speaker.

Ease of Use:
Getting a good tone with this amp is a no-brainer due to the simplicty of the amp's design concept. It's best to avoid extreme settings, though. The manual itself reminds users that particular settings work best with particular types of guitars, and that volume levels are vastly different from one voicing to the next in some cases. The manual is easy to read, but you could figure this amp out in a few minutes even without it.

Overall:
It was the fact that Fender had issued another $300 tube amp (I have a PJ) that inclined me to check this one out. At this price and with this much flexibility I'll probably hold onto it for a good while.

Feature:
Nice throw in feature. My only suggestion would be an independant reverb.

Quality:
At this price point- NO ISSUES !

Value:
I'll be picking up another one soon.

Sound:
Killer Strat tone. Pre-amp selections offer a wide variety of the real deal.

Ease of Use:
It took all of about 2 minutes to tweak the sound I was after.

Overall:
For recording, jamming and small venue gigs, I have found THE amp.