Fender Super Champ XD Guitar Combo Amp  

Nice selection of amp emulations. Simple, useful Treble/Bass controls.

Very nice cabinet quality. Box is very sturdy, and does not buzz or rattle. Provided speaker is decent, but nuts were cranked down with so much torque they bent the speaker frame! Installed Rajin Cajun, and it's a major improvement.

My biggest complaint is that the digital preamp (that includes tone controls and amp emulations of both channels) is hissy. The noise floor is high. And worse, when you let notes decay slowly into silence, the hiss is very uneven, like poor digital aliasing. If you're playing really loudly, you won't notice the hiss. But if you're strumming quietly at home, or recording, it becomes a problem.

However, I am handly with a soldering iron. I installed the very simple pre-amp bypass mod, or power amp IN mod, so I can run my guitar signal direct into the tube section. A significant boost is required to get the volume back up (my clean boost pedal works great) but now the amp is nice and quiet--no more crappy digital hiss. So now I know I can use the Super Champ XD as a true, simple tube amp when I want to bypass the digital front end. Very cool.

This little butt kicker is a 6V6 tube powered amp and it sounds awesome.  Owning and jamming through this amp during that time has been wonderful.  I've been meaning to write this review for awhile now, something happened yesterday that finally motivated me to actually write it.

I have a crappy solid state amp that I haven't used in years.  I pulled it out and played through it and it was awful!  It made me realize how fortunate I am to own a SCXD.  The Fender SCXD is way more than a practice/recording amp and I forgot that.

What I remember about this amp when I tried it for the first time was that drop dead gorgeous Fender clean tone.  Then I tried the amp modeling and damn near lost my mind!  One thing to remember with the amp modeling is to EQ with your ears.  A lot of them need differnt settings than the clean channel.

If you purchase the footswitch (highly recommended) try switching back and forth from clean to # 3 (heavily overdriven Fender bassman).  To my ears that has the most consistent EQ and it sounds fantastic.  Again, adjust with your ears and not your eyes, the gain goes a long way.  This amp takes pedals great.  I've used my pedalboard through the clean channel and it sounds excellent.

When I first purchased this amp, I was obsessed with making it even better.  I replaced the stock speaker with an Eminence Raging Cajun and bought the footswitch.  I don't regret the footswitch but hindsight being 20/20 I would've held my fire on the speaker.  The speaker made the amp a lot heavier and it rattles at higher volumes.  You can get this amp to scream with the stock speaker and it doesn't rattle.

Treat the 12AX7 tube like a 9 volt battery.  A lot of people recommend biasing the power tubes hotter than the factory setting.  I didn't do that and the power tubes are still going strong almost 4 years later.  I do change out the 12AX7 frequently, about 6 weeks on average and I play through this amp 2 to 3 hours daily.

I wish this amp was available back in 1982 when I first started playing.  Back then, me and my friends had garbage solid state practice amps and Marshall JCM 800 50 watt half stacks.  We were convinced that if we practiced through our crappy solid state amps we would sound that much better when we played through our half stacks at band practice.

Solid state amps require a different touch than tube amps.  You can have killer chops through a solid state amp and end up sounding very sloppy through a tube amp.  Not to mention every time you get to play your guitar is a wonderful gift, indulge yourself with beautiful tone.

I highly recommend this amp for someone who just started playing and is serious about their tone.  I also recommend this amp to the seasoned vet who demands killer tone without hurting their back hauling gear to and from gigs.  It's plenty loud and if you need it to be louder, mic it!

Why do guitar players end up spending more money on amps that are way too heavy and loud so they can be heard?  When is the last time you saw an ad, "Wanted vocalist that can sing louder than the band without being mic'd"?

Great amp modeling sounds.  Fender does a great job modeling the "hotrod" and "blackface" amps.  Only thing frustrating is lack of foot controller for switching effects and amp models but the price point makes it understandable.

Typical fender simple and clean design.

You really can't argue value at this price for what you are getting with this amp.  The tone that comes out of this thing is unbelievable.  I also removed it from the cab it comes in and mounted it in a 112 cabinet with a Celestion Gold and the tone and clarity is so good it's hard to believe its an amp priced as it is. Seriously people spend upwards of five times this price for tone like this.   Worth building or buying a 112 can for.

I've always like Fender's clean tones and they certainly don't disappoint here.  And the 15 watts is plenty for small gigs.  At home I can't get it above 2.5 without my daughter complaining.  In gigs I don't have it past 5 or I start getting told to turn it down.  Well worth the money for sure.

If you keep in mind the cost of this amp and that fact that this amp is not a vintage tube amp then you want be disappointed.  Also keep in mind that this is not a Twin Reverb, Super Reverb, Princeton, Vibrolux Reverb, Vibro King or Super Sonic.  Don't try to compare it to those amps.  This little amp is a real bargain at this price.  The bells and whistles are nice to have.  It's nice not having to hook up stomp boxes.  I like the models, but many seem redundant to me.  I generally just use the first three.

This little amp is well built and should last a long time with a little care.  I see no need to change the speaker or tubes unless you just like to experiment.  I'm in my 60's and I honestly can't tell much difference to justify the cost of new tubes or a new speaker.

This is a real bargain.

Overall I think Fender has a winner with this amp.  It's not point to point, hand wired, vintage or botique, but it is solid and is just plain fun to play and record with.

This amp is great as far as features go of course we all about the 16 diffrent voices, 2 channels, and effects......some of the voices arent very useful to me, but at least if I ever need the kind of tones that it offers in those channels, I can have them on tap. The effects are all great, i mostly use the reverb and delay and on occasion use the chorus and can say that they are all very useful and most importantly dont sound too processed so thats always nice....The only this this amp is lacking is a mid control, but i dont seem to miss it too much, though it would be nice. This is an amazing amp as far as features go without being overly complicated to use all of them!

I dont gig, just do music as a hobby but I can look at this amp and tell that its well built, mine I actually bought used and couldnt tell that it had even been used if that tells you anything. All of the seams on the black tolex are nicely tied together and barely noticable, knobs all roll smooth and do their job, and it is easy to tell which effect or voice you have selected with the pointer unlike a orange crush pix I own, which this amp replaced. Only two thing that earn it an 8 for is that it doesnt have any corner protectors and compared to the orange crush, the power cord is a bit smaller and cheaper feeling, again not big problems, so definetly dont let them get in the way of clicking the buy button!

Best amp in its price range. Of any name brand. And this baby has great TUBE tone!! Buy it.

This amp does everything that i want it to do, couldnt ask for more, and it makes me even happier when I think about how much I paid for it. The clean sound is amazing, not much of a pedal user but it takes my boss ds-1 and sounds great with it, and the channels could all be useful, unless you want metal......but if you want metal, why are you looking at a fender amp? hah Tone is sort of bright, but its a nice bright....very pleasing to play through and hear. Did I mention the great hendrix and SRV tones? and it also does RHCP well too and on the acoustasonic voice does good tones for songs like tears in heaven and such......well if youve read all of this monster of a review i typed for you more power to you, but if you like blues, rock, country, funk..... any of these this amp does amazingly well, buy while its on sale! Hope this review helps, and happy playing!