Champ vs Gretsch vs Laney etc

Any thoughts on the pluses and minuses of the Fender Champ 600 vs. the Gretsch Electromatic vs. Laney Cub 8 (or any other similar Class A 5 watt), Bugera, Crate etc)?

And I'm sure there are hand-wired ones that blow these away, but with a budget of >$200 what's the score?? I'd be playing my ASAT Classic Trib through it.

Thx

or any other similar Class A 5 watt

For a similar amp I recently tried my friend's Epiphone Valve Jr. Head. I was quite impressed for the $99 he spent on it. It broke up nicely with a beefy tone when cranked. They make a combo version but I haven't heard it to give an opinion about the speaker it comes with.

You should check this amp out:

Crate Blackheart BH1H Killer Ant Guitar Amp head, <1W All Tube amp.

I tried out a Blackheart before - they have more powerful versions, besides the 1 watt version. I know someone who owns the Blackheart and they love it.

You would need to get some small cabinet and speaker to go with the Killer Ant - you might be able to find something used real cheap, since it would not require much of a speaker to work with this.

The Epi Valve Jr. is great for $99. I saw a demo of it with a 4 12" Marshall cabinet and it sounded good.

The Fender Vibro Champ XD is more full sounding than the Champ 600. I used to own a Champ 600 and while it is more "organic" sounding than the Vibro Champ XD, I probably should have gone with the Vibro
Champ XD instead. If you really like the Champ 600 you should hook it up to a larger speaker cabinet. The speaker in it is just too small to do much.

I have a Moonlight 1 watt amp head (the circuit is on the web somewhere) that I lucked out on getting built for me a long time ago. I usually practice with the Moonlight volume turned up from between 1/3 to 1/2.
5 watts is very loud for home practice - you can jam with a band with a 5 watt head and at least one 12" speaker, for example.

My thoughts on the Champ 600: An awful sounding amp that shouldn't cost anything at all and should be avoided at all costs. Its unusable.

The Laney Cub 8: Better, but incredibly poor build quality, feels like a toy.

In that class the best I've tried is the Vox ACTV4. Great amp, highly usable sounds, comes with a very decent speaker and is switchable between 4,1 and 1/4 Watts. I believe they are the same price as the Champ 600. If you get a chance, compare the Vox and the Champ.

BTW, 'The Champ' is a total misnomer. 'The Chump' would be more appropriate. Apologies to any Champ owners!!!

OK, good input. I should have mentioned that I would actually gig with it, not just practice, so a 1 watt amp won't do. I actually did a gig at our local venue once with a friend's Pignose, so I don't need too loud. Also I am prejudiced by my "one trip from the car" mantra to favor combo amps.

The switchability of the Vox ACTV4 may be the ticket. I'll have to try one out. The one Champ owner I know used it for a while, then sent it out for a Fargen upgrade, which of course doubled the price of the amp.

All I know is, I have to replace the Frontman 25 I have. Not sure what I was thinking when I bought it, but mediocre clean sound and the ugliest drive sound I have heard in quite a while. The hot pickups on the ASAT only make it worse. I suppose I could upgrade the speaker but that sounds like throwing good money after bad.

I really enjoyed the ac4tv combo but then I tried the mini stack and it is great. Its not much more cash and that twelve inch speaker in the cab just sounds even better. I like the watt switching too

If the budget will stretch then a Laney Lionheart 5 watter is the bees knees I reckon. Celestion speaker, loud enough to gig with, wonderful tone at low volume (clean AND overdriven), built to a much higher standard than the normal Laney's.

I'm saving up for one!

I absolutely love the Champ 600. It has one of the best cleanish tones for any small amp.
I use two of them and thats enough for small gig's (but like to play at the lowest volume possible).

There are 2 minor mods I think are needed.
First rip the speaker cloth off and replace it so the speaker can breath.
Secondly I think they perform better as open backs. So I removed the
so I can take the back panel off easily.

You can NOT run these at full blast, When You get into power tube overdrive the
volume is way to loud and the low end goes down the drain. If You stay away
from that and use a pedal for overdrive/dist You can get very sweet tones.

Cheers
L-zr