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Post subject: original 1957 Champ amp.
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 10:00 am
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$300 buy from original owner. Great condition. Never serviced. 6" oxford speaker. Grey cord. Turns on and cranks. Should I service or play as is. Wish it was an 8" speaker.


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Post subject: Re: original 1957 Champ amp.
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:25 am
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Fsalas199 wrote:
$300 buy from original owner. Great condition. Never serviced. 6" oxford speaker. Grey cord. Turns on and cranks. Should I service or play as is. Wish it was an 8" speaker.


Get it serviced. Keep all the original caps and resistors and maybe change to a 3 prong cord. You can always find a way to make an extension cab jack without drilling the chassis and run a 10" or 12" speaker.


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Post subject: Re: original 1957 Champ amp.
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 3:55 pm
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63supro wrote:
Fsalas199 wrote:
$300 buy from original owner. Great condition. Never serviced. 6" oxford speaker. Grey cord. Turns on and cranks. Should I service or play as is. Wish it was an 8" speaker.


Get it serviced. Keep all the original caps and resistors and maybe change to a 3 prong cord. You can always find a way to make an extension cab jack without drilling the chassis and run a 10" or 12" speaker.
+1 on the 3 prong. Good advice 63!!! 8) Mike

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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:52 am
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Great score and good advice!

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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:06 am
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An original at only twice the price of the PCB reissue. Very cool score.


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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:30 am
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The 57 champ reissue is not a pcb amp, its point to point.

$300 is a steal for an original 57 champ !!!

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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:12 am
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Nice! Definitely replace with 3 prongs, put in an external speaker jack and experiment with different cabs.


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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:13 am
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The OP said it had a six inch speaker. The 57 Reissue has an 8" speaker. So I'm thinking the 600. Unless the OP measured wrong.

I believe the original had an 8 also.

If it's a 57, he saved $700 and has the real deal.


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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:53 am
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The schematic for 5F1 circuit shows a design for a 8" and a 6".

My clone has the 8 as it is most common.

I guess it wouldnt be a big deal to replace but you might want to keep the thing original and use a cab instead.


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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:26 pm
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I'm more player than collector myself, but I vote with the rest on not modifying it. Add on an extension cab or whatever, but leave the original intact and I probably wouldn't push it either.

I've resisted modifying anything on my '72 Mustang for similar reasons. I could make it more playable, hotter sounding or whatever, but only by doing some potentially irreversible work on it.


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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:32 pm
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Then you'll end up like this Mustang on my local CL http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/msg/1316428556.html

A shame...


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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:43 pm
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Maintaining it and modding it are two different animals. If you don't maintain it, replace the filter caps at least, you may loose the transformer. Then you have nothing. You can save the filter caps and cord. Replacing the original cord with a 2 prong cord is not modding it. It's making it safe. If you save the cord it's completely reversible and will not harm the value of the amp one bit.


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Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:23 pm
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Yeah, very nice amp! All of the previous advice is right on. The maintenance service should include the cathode bias components and maybe a NOS RCA 6V6GT(IMHO). Do you have any ideas or plans for the OEM Oxford, and possibly adding speakers? ART


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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 11:45 pm
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Still have the 1957 Champ amp with 6" oxford speaker and orginal tubes. No service to it. Not sure yet. The New 57 Champ looks cool but to much cash. Got my oldie for $300.


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Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:57 am
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Congrats! What a great amp!

If I'm not mistaken, the older champs had a RCA jack for the speaker. Shouldn't be too hard to wire up a speaker cable with a 1/4" on one side and a RCA on the other - no mods but you can use an external speaker cabinet.

I'm all for originality - but if you're going to play it, change to a 3 prong cord and change the filter caps. Keep them in case someone wants it absolutely correct. If they want to shock themselves, their case.

No one's ever looked at my amps and said, "Wow! Nice 65 Bandmaster, but why'd you put a 3 prong cord on it?"

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