I'd like to jump right in to the review, but because this is a pre-release beta version of the software I do have to say that while it was very stable and, as you will see below, sounded very polished indeed to me, there is the possibility that something or things could be changed in the final versi... [More]

Fender Super Champ XD Review In prior years, most small powered amps featured a watered down version of the features of their higher powered cousins. However, it appears manufacturers have recently (and finally) been catering to those seeking smaller yet full featured amps. The market has been spli... [More]

The New Champ? From a tonal perspective, it’s hard to fault the Super Champ XD’s traditional Fender tones, especially at lower volumes, which faithfully captures the chime commonly associated with Fender’s clean and slightly overdriven tones. It would be a good buy for a project or... [More]

Fender Cyber-Champ Review The baby of the Cyber series, Fender’s Mexican made Cyber-Champ shares many of the same features of it’s older siblings such as the digitally controlled analog Virtual Tone Interpolation (VTI) preamp engine which virtually reconfigures the gain stage/tone stack... [More]

Part I - An Abbreviated History of the Champ and Fender (Non Tube) Amps Early Fender tube amps were basically lifted from RCA radio designs and modified for higher power and a more rugged design. By leveraging these designs, Fender was able to forgo large research and development costs in their init... [More]