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Post subject: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 4:33 pm
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Hello everyone!

I have an old tube combo amp, which looks to be a department store knock-off of a Fender Champ. There are no manufacturer names on it, though on the front below the speaker, it looks as if there may have been a name tag tacked on at one time. It has a Mallory Type FP capacitor, the tubes are RCA 5Y3GT rectifier, RCA 6V6GT power and RCA 6SJ7 preamp and an oval speaker about 6"x10". The small plate tacked to the top/rear has X46422 stamped into it.

Does anyone know the make and production time frame of this little guy? It still works great and sounds pretty neat with vintage-medium wound single coils.

Pictures are here:

Image

Image

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 5:44 pm
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It looks like an old Valco (early to mid 1950's). Valco made amps for Supro, National, Silvertone, Gretsch, Oahu - just to name a few. They were located in Chicago and typically when people talk about Chicago tone.... their talking Valco.

You might trying posting your photos over at http://www.valcoamp.com/.

If it is a Valco, this is a great little find. Here's another website dedicated to Valco's.
http://www.valcopages.com/

The age of the amp can be determined by the numbers on the components, such as the speaker code. This article should help you.

BTW - There is a good chance this amp was part of a Lap Steel set. They would sell the amp and the lap steel as a set. Eventually they seem to get separated and the amp turns into a guitar amp. :lol:


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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 6:05 pm
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phansford wrote:
BTW - There is a good chance this amp was part of a Lap Steel set. They would sell the amp and the lap steel as a set. Eventually they seem to get separated and the amp turns into a guitar amp. :lol:


+1

The amp does appear to be "Valco-esque".

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 9:08 pm
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Wow, thanks guys! Waiting on a reply for the specifics, but given the info you linked me to, I've learned the following:

1) Valco manufactured in 1955.
2) The speaker is a Rola made the 41st week of 1953.
3) The transformer was made in the 39th week of 1953, but I dont know who made it and cant find a manufacturer source code for 166.

In 1987 my dad bought me a guitar and this little amp. Of course, I wanted to "rock" and a little later picked up a solid state Quantum amp with "overdrive" (cool to me then, but it was really just noise). The Quantum is long gone but I've always held onto this little amp. I plan on keeping it stock, though I do want to try it through another speaker. The circuit is so simple I could clone this thing in a minute and have a little fun experimenting with something new using the same design.

Photos of the inside:

Image
Image
Image

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 9:38 pm
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The "166" EIA code currently translates to transformers manufactured by Magnetic Components Inc......

http://www.magneticcomponents.net/

Possible replacement for the amp's original tranny?

You've done some fine sleuth work nailing down this artifact's pedigree -- congrats!

It's a nice looking piece of historical Americana.

Rawk on!

8)

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 5:10 am
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Retroverbial wrote:
The "166" EIA code currently translates to transformers manufactured by Magnetic Components Inc......

http://www.magneticcomponents.net/

Possible replacement for the amp's original tranny?

Arjay


Arjay.

Thanks man! MCI was the original maker of the tranny and they still make the same model!

http://www.classictone.net/40-18052.html

This has been a fun little journey! I appreciate all your help Phansford and Arjay!

jt burke

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 6:42 am
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There is quite a following for these old Valco's. I would love to grab one eventually.

There is a company making boutique replicas. Vintage47. GREAT AMPS. Hand-wired point to point made in America! I own one of their Oahu Suitcases. Very affordable.

Image

Enjoy that amp.

My 2¢ about the speaker..... leave it. The value of the amp is all the original components. And the tone is in the speaker. If you want a different speaker - I would think about a line out first.


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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:43 am
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phansford wrote:
There is quite a following for these old Valco's. I would love to grab one eventually.

There is a company making boutique replicas. Vintage47. GREAT AMPS. Hand-wired point to point made in America! I own one of their Oahu Suitcases. Very affordable.

Enjoy that amp.

My 2¢ about the speaker..... leave it. The value of the amp is all the original components. And the tone is in the speaker. If you want a different speaker - I would think about a line out first.


Oh I dont intend to modify the amp at all. IF I did anything, it would be replacing the trannys with new ones (since they're the same make/model) and the tubes (even though the old RCAs in there now sound fine). I wanted to know the speaker's impedance so I could try a temporary speaker output and see how it sounds through other speakers. I've not been able to get a ton of Rola info online, other than history, but on one page, a user with my speaker model thought it was 4 ohms (which is lower that I would have guessed).

Those Vintage47 amps look nice and are priced low! I'll have to check them out in more detail. Thanks!

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:47 am
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Why not merely disconnect the speaker and measure its impedance with a DVM?

I'm given to understand that it only takes about ten seconds......

:mrgreen:

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:00 pm
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Retroverbial wrote:
Why not merely disconnect the speaker and measure its impedance with a DVM?

I'm given to understand that it only takes about ten seconds......

:mrgreen:

Arjay


Yeah, I guess being an audio technician by trade, I understand the impedance curves of drivers and that "nominal" is only a rough estimate. It takes a bit of gear to accurately test a speaker's impedance and the old "ohm meter across the terminals" isn't always accurate, or effective at all. I got weird readings with my meter on the Rola, but if I had to guess, I would say 8 ohms. I wanted a more firm answer before I go loading the little amp with a speaker impedance it doesn't like. :D

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:39 pm
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You might post that question to Mr. Valco (aka Terry Dobbs)


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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:50 pm
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Musepro wrote:
I got weird readings with my meter on the Rola


Did you isolate the speaker by disconnecting it?

Speaker impedance is not a true resistive value -- it's a somewhat arbitrary figure that speaker manufacturers use to arrive at a static measurement to give amp gurus something to work with when engineering the output stage. The fact is, a loudspeaker's design impedance is actually a dynamic spec using a 400 Hz sine wave as a test signal.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Rola Speaker rating Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2012 12:59 pm
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I realize this is an old post, but just to clarify for furture visitors; these Rola 6x11 Oval speakers are rated at 4 Ohm, Valco used these for the Gretsch, Supro, National amps that used 2x oval speaker pairs, they are killer sounding speakers for vintage tone and especially great for blue harp amps! To meter the speaker terminals resistance you should disconnect the output transformer, it will read 3.6 ohms or something less than 4 ohms, Speaker voice coil readings almost never come out on exact numbers, rule of thumb is to average up the metered value (8 Ohm speakers will be between 6.8 and 7.8 ohms)


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Post subject: Re: Rola Speaker rating Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2012 4:23 pm
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vintage47 wrote:
I realize this is an old post, but just to clarify for furture visitors; these Rola 6x11 Oval speakers are rated at 4 Ohm, Valco used these for the Gretsch, Supro, National amps that used 2x oval speaker pairs, they are killer sounding speakers for vintage tone and especially great for blue harp amps! To meter the speaker terminals resistance you should disconnect the output transformer, it will read 3.6 ohms or something less than 4 ohms, Speaker voice coil readings almost never come out on exact numbers, rule of thumb is to average up the metered value (8 Ohm speakers will be between 6.8 and 7.8 ohms)


+1

This particular amp seems to be set up like a vintage Champ (single-ended blackface type). The OT's secondary usually measures close to 3.4 ohms which is atypical for a solo 6V6 act. Fender calls it 4 ohms for simplicity's sake and that's the impedance of the specified speaker.

HTH

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Champ knock-off?
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 1:53 am
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MusePro, if you want a bit more "shimmer" to the tone, the RCA red metal cased JAN 5693 are very good tubes. They are plug-in for the 6SJ7.

And NOS can be found and are relatively cheap.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid= ... &_from=R40


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