Super Champ XD
The Fender Super Champ XD has quickly become a hit because of its convincing blackface tone, wide range of amp emulations, and built-in effects. The low price and light weight haven’t hurt, either. The settings on the linked page were gleaned from a variety of contributors as a suggested starting point for a variety of tones and styles.
Hi Bill – Glad to see you are doing things with the SCXD. Have you tried any tube swapping yet? I see that these amps are made in China and doubt if the tube quality is all that great. Thanks for a response.
JJ and Tung-Sol 6V6s are both better than the stock tubes. The 12AX7 has a minor effect on tone. The Electro Harmonix 12AX7s that were in both of my SCXDs were fine.
I have a Vibro Champ XD for home practice as my B Jr is too loud. I love the Vibro Champ tone, especially the Blackface settings. I wish it was easy to install a DSP bypass.
I was able to swap out the 8″ stock speaker to a 10″ Jensen Mod. It was an easy fit, with an enlarged baffle board hole, and it sounds great.
PEACE, Richard
If you did a DSP bypass you wouldn’t have much of an amplifier, just a power tube and a driver. The DSP controls all of the functions, including volume, tone, and all the voices. There are no tone or volume controls in the traditional sense; the knobs send their position to the DSP, which creates the proper loudness or tone.
Thanks for the insight, good sir! I guess that may be the reason the SCXD uses Blackface 4 voice as the “clean” channel.
I look forward to seeing what mods you may come up with for the SCXD, and hope some will apply to ‘lil bro.
I find my 5 watter lacks enough volume for practice situations, but not by very much. I would love to see an OT mod and octal tube 5881 conversion for the VCXD. I would not want a big jump in power if I’d lose the good bedroom volume it has now. Maybe I could swap out the OT in the B Jr if I do your OT upgrade to it?
Thanks, Richard
Single-ended output transformers are constructed differently inside than push-pull transformers. So unfortunately, the BJr OT would not be compatible.
Any luck finding a replacement PT for the SCXD?
No, the only thing you could do if you wanted a high-power transformer for a SCXD is to steal one from a Deluxe VM. It has the same combination of high- and low-voltage windings and is big enough to deliver 40 watts from the 6L6s. Maybe Fender will decide to do a Deluxe XD.