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Post subject: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:13 pm
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Location: Marysville, WA
I have now had my SuperChamp X2 head for over a week, and the matching 1x12 cab has arrived in the mail too.

I am over the moon with this little combo. When I had first purchased the head, I matched it up with a Vox 1x12 cab that a friend loaned me, and I loved the tone. However, now that I have the matched Fender 1x12 cab, I am really now getting the full benefit of this set up.

(When I had plugged the head into the vox cab, I needed to crank the bass to get the low end response that I wanted, and I also had to turn the volume up higher than I wanted to in order to get the tone that I really loved. This is fine some of the time, but when the fam is alseep, I was having to keep the volume pretty low, and was not loving the tone as much.) Now that I have the matching 1x12 cab, I am really in love. The bass is much more present and the tone is bigger and more articulate even at lower levels. .

For those of you who don't know yet, Channel 1 is the traditional "Champ" circuit, tube powered, on top of which you can add digital reverb, delay, tremolo, vibratone etc. On channel 2, you can choose between 16 digital amp models on top of which you can add the digital effects as well. This is also tube powered, but has the element of digital processing as well. According to Fender the modeling software is somehow related to, or based upon the Mustang amp modeling software.

On top of all of that, you can plug this amp into your computer and deep edit any of the 16 digital models to your liking. You can delete models that are installed and add a tweaked creation of your own using one of the 16 models that are supported. You can also add stomp effects of all kinds into any of your 16 presets and save them to the amp so they appear even when your amp is not plugged in.

Here are the 16 models.
1 Tweed Champ
2 Tweed Deluxe clean
3 Tweed Deluxe dirty/compressed
4 tweed baseman
5 65 Princeton clean
6 65 Princeton clean dirty/compressed
7 65 deluxe
8 65 Twin Amp
9 60's British clean
10 60's British dirty/compressed
11 70's British
12 80's British
13 Super-sonic
14 90's Metal
15 2000 Metal
16 Jazzmaster

I have already commented on each of these models on a previous review, but overall my feelings are...
The Princeton is shockingly awesome sounding. The Supersonic came with waaaay too much gain to be useful for anything beside heavy rock, so I backed off the gain on Fuse and now LOVE the Supersonic. I've already gotten rid of the 2000 Metal and the Jazzmaster, but all of the other models are useful and fun to play with.

I am really shocked (now that I have the cab), at how much I love the tones even at low volumes. I also am really impressed with the reverb and delay effect. These are not cheap digital sounds, they really are convincingly authentic.

You can get great Marshall-esque tones out of channels 10-12, and I am enjoying playing some flavors of classic rock that I was not playing much of on my XD.

I sold a Fender Blues Jr III in order to afford this amp, and I am not missing it at all. In fact with the 12 inch cab, the Channel 1 champ takes pedals and sounds a lot bigger than I thought it would. And playing with some of the Princeton and Twin settings, I am getting some really cool tones that I was trying to coax out of my Blues Jr.

The only drawbacks that I can sense at this point are:
Some people will wish that they had a headphone jack.
Some people will wish that they had a line in for playing with an mp3 player.
(I don't know how this would have worked with Tubes, but I am already hearing some people wish for that.)
My only wish/drawback(s) are:
Why not offer a 2x10 and 2x12 cab option as well?
And. If this is the Mustang software, why not allow the Superchamp to use any and all of the models that Mustang supports?

None of those are drawbacks that make me regret my purchase. In fact, now that I have this head and cab, I can easily say that I have not had as much confidence and excitement about an amp purchase, ever.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:08 pm
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Thanks for the review, paztormike! Sounds like a keeper!


Jim


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:10 pm
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mike- i got mine on monday- the head, that is.

i hooked it up to the speakers in my carvin sx 200 amp, and am absolutely thrilled so far. this weekend i plan to hook up the fuse, and i can't wait to get a cab for it.

question on the cab you got- what is the difference in the 2 cabs- is the fender just more efficient, or just newer, or just happened to be voiced right for the x2?

it's kind of hard for me to figure out which direction i will go

good luck with yours- mine's a keeper too


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:23 pm
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phreddybee wrote:
mike- i got mine on monday- the head, that is.

i hooked it up to the speakers in my carvin sx 200 amp, and am absolutely thrilled so far. this weekend i plan to hook up the fuse, and i can't wait to get a cab for it.

question on the cab you got- what is the difference in the 2 cabs- is the fender just more efficient, or just newer, or just happened to be voiced right for the x2?

it's kind of hard for me to figure out which direction i will go

good luck with yours- mine's a keeper too


I wish that I knew enough about the difference between speakers to really know how and why they have the impact that they have. The vox cab that I was using was bigger and deeper, but had a much thinner tone to it. The fender cab has an 80w Celestion special design speaker and is taller and not as deep but has a ton more low end tone and is more articulate than the vox cab.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:09 am
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good to know-thanks for the reply


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 2:39 pm
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paztormike wrote:
I have now had my SuperChamp X2 head for over a week, and the matching 1x12 cab has arrived in the mail too.

I am over the moon with this little combo. When I had first purchased the head, I matched it up with a Vox 1x12 cab that a friend loaned me, and I loved the tone. However, now that I have the matched Fender 1x12 cab, I am really now getting the full benefit of this set up.

None of those are drawbacks that make me regret my purchase. In fact, now that I have this head and cab, I can easily say that I have not had as much confidence and excitement about an amp purchase, ever.


Mike

I am curious about this amp, well, make that very intrigued. I have/am considering the G-DEC 3 30 watt, the Mustang III, or the SCX2 Combo. I have to admit, the G-DEC to me seems that is just not adjustable enough 'on the fly' to use live, the Mustang III has this lingering 'fizz' issue, so that leaves the SCX2 combo. By all that I can read about it (haven't had my hands on one to try it out yet), the SCX2 is a wonderful amp, but the lack of footswitch options (as on the Mustang III or G-DEC) is a gaping hole in the specs of what seems to be an otherwise excellent amp. My other issue is that I don't know how many effects can be used at the same time. Is it just one?, or, can you use multiple effects at once???

Randy


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 2:58 pm
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Randy. I'd agree with what you said about the GDEC 3 live, it's designed to be a great practice amp and designed to keep your backing tracks sounding good through the same amp that you are playing guitar. It's unique and amazing, but lacks for live application.

The Mustang III... I really like a lot. I have friends with them, and none of them had any fizz issue. The footswitch is a really cool edition to the Mustang III too. I think that might be the best solution for live applications if you need to switch between a lot of different sounds. If you buy a Mustang and there is fuzz, as long as you notice it within the retailers's return dates, you can swap it out for a new one easily.

The SCX2 is the best sounding of the bunch to me. the tubes make a big difference and you can really get some amazing tone out of this thing. It's simple and straight forward. It would be super easy to preset all of your favorite tones among the 16 voices in channel 2, but you are going to have to switch through them by hand and not by foot.

Of course another cool solution is going to be the Mustang Floor that comes out in a few weeks. You can plug that into channel 1, and have the best of all worlds. Ha ha.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:59 am
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I spent a couple of hours just goofing off with the Fuse software on this amp and loved the tones that I was creating. I loved that I was able to drop a Fuzz pedal on top of the '65 Deluxe and on top of the Bassman Models and come up with some amazing sounds some really cool Black Keys and Jack White type of tones.

Also putting a virtual OD pedal in front of amps was really surprisingly cool. On other modeling amps, putting an OD pedal in front sounded exactly the same as just turning up the amp gain, but the virtual OD retains a really good tube screamer type of effect.

I have to say though, I still do not understand Fender's decision to NOT include a Mid knob on the actual physical amp.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:22 pm
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Great review. Thanks.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Super Champ X2 Head and 1x12 Cab -Review
Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 5:02 am
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Since the SCX2 has a USB port, I am hoping a third party creates a footswitch to control more than just the channels and effects on/off. If that happens, I will buy a SCX2 immediately.

_________________
Guitars: Fender A.D.E Strat - Schecter PT with Duncans - Martin OOOC16RGTE
PA Gear: Alesis MultiMix 10 Mixer - Carvin FX2 - EV ZLX12P Powered Speakers
Amps: Fender Mustang III v2 - Alto Kick 12
Effects: Line 6 M13


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