Help with Fender Champion "600"

[stevel]

This is one of those relatively new jobbies with the two tone brown/beige tolex and the "suede" grill cloth.

I like this little amp.

But something's "hissing" in it.

It happens on certain notes, especially when played hard (and not that the amp's breaking up yet at that point).

It's relatively quiet, and in the background. If you weren't listening intently you probably wouldn't notice it (but now that I notice it, it bugs me).

Like I'll play an E on the 7th fret 5th string and as the note dies away I'll notice this hissing in the background, that dies away too.

Is it likely the speaker?

I think I could rig a cable to come out of it's output jack and on to the terminals of the speaker in a Pro Jr. I have - is that OK? The Speaker Out put says 4 ohms minimum at 5 watts.

If the Pro Jr is 8 ohms can I test it with that? (I'm assuming the Pro Jr's speaker is more wattage, though not sure about the resistance).

Likewise, could I plug in the Pro Jr's extension jack and power the Champion 600 similarly, just to test it?

TIA,
STeve

[stevel]

Bump, or with a Champion 600, more like a pimple.

Anyone?

[fuzz_factor]

I have a Champ 600 and a Blues Jr. I think the Champ's speaker sound pretty crappy: buzzy and farty. It's not so bad with clean tones, but that speaker makes just about any dirt box (Tim, Timmy, OCD, Fulldrive, etc.) sound like crap.

My solution: I use the Blues Jrs. speaker with the Champ. It sounds great! It increases the volume slightly, but it's still very manageable at bedroom volumes. Full blooming cleans and dirt boxes that sound the way they should!

I bought a female to female 1/8" adapter at Radio Shack. I unplug speaker from the Blues Jr. and plug the adapter on the end. I then plug a longer speaker cable into the adapter. I've now made the Blues Jr's speaker cable a couple feet long. If the Pro Jr. is wired up the same as the Blues Jr., you can just unplug the internal speaker cable from the Champ and plug in the now-longer cable from Jr.

Best part is, when you want to use your Jr., just unplug from the Champ and plug back into Jr.

One thing: When I'm just using Jr. for it's speaker (which is almost all the time at home), I make sure to unplug the power cord and bundle it up in the back. This way, you don't accidentally operate the amp without a speaker load.

HTH!

Oh yeah, if an amp expects 4 ohms of resistance, it's OK to plug in a speaker that offers 8 ohms of resistance. It NOT OK to go the other way around. You must meet or exceed the resistance (number of ohms) that the amps is rated for.

[stevel]

I bought a female to female 1/8" adapter at Radio Shack. I unplug speaker from the Blues Jr. and plug the adapter on the end. I then plug a longer speaker cable into the adapter. I've now made the Blues Jr's speaker cable a couple feet long. If the Pro Jr. is wired up the same as the Blues Jr., you can just unplug the internal speaker cable from the Champ and plug in the now-longer cable from Jr.

OK, I'll try that. Easy enough.

Best part is, when you want to use your Jr., just unplug from the Champ and plug back into Jr.

Oh yeah, if an amp expects 4 ohms of resistance, it's OK to plug in a speaker that offers 8 ohms of resistance. It NOT OK to go the other way around. You must meet or exceed the resistance (number of ohms) that the amps is rated for.

OK, that's what I still (and probably will continue to) get confused about.

I'll try and commit it to memory...

Thanks,
Steve

[Dorianrock]

Agreed on the crappy champ 600 speaker, there wasn't anything i could put with it gain wise that didn't make the sound go to total dog crap. it was a nice warm sounding clean though! to answer your question, i don't know I never heard anything like that when i had mine