VINTAGE FENDER TWEED CHAMP 5D1 - Restoration & Demo

Fender Tweed Champ 5D1 - Restoration And Demo

Vintage N’ Rare Guitars in Bath sent us this 1954/1955 Fender Champ amplifier for restoration. Here we document the process and get to hear how it sounds. And if you like the amp, it’s currently for sale (May 2021)

Long recognised as secret recording tone monster in the studio, check out Ed's original demo at the end of the video to hear how monstrous tones can be conjured up to sit in a track using a small amp.
Ed used a 1954 Esquire and a 1964 Stratocaster. Amp audio recorded with a Royer R121 direct into UA Apollo 8XP into Logic., touch of reverb used for some tones courtesy of a stuning EBO Customs Reverb unit.

Key Timings

0:00 Intro

1:20 First look

3:28 Filter capacitors

4:52 Transformer testing

7:23 Speaker shock

8:39 Output transformer

14:02 Filter cap swap

19:27 Signal capacitors

20:41 Mains wiring

22:45 Powering up

26:54 Speaker swap

30:29 Demo

31:35 Outro

Thanks to Andrew and Steve at Vintage N’ Rare Guitars

Don’t forget that working on tube amplifiers can be very dangerous, and if you decide to try any of the procedures featured in this video, you do so at your own risk...

More Tone Twins coming soon!

Diolch!