This Fancy
Fender 600 Amp
From 1952 Rocks!

A 1952 Fender 600 Amp

Look what we have here! A 1952 Fender 600 amp, or Champion 600, so the tube chart states. Fancy! The infamous Champion 600 amp that was reissued borrowes it’s esthetics from this one. And that’s as far as the reissue-ing went as the interior is obviously not a point to point design, but a pcb design with the circuit of a 60s/70s champ but with a fixed eq setting and a solid state rectifier.

The original Fender 600 amp has a 6SJ7 preamp tube, one 6v6 output tube and a 5Y3 rectifier. It also still has a true point to point circuit. That’s not even a circuitboard, but just all of the components and wiring hardwired to one another. Fancy! 

It looks kind of messy but once you understand the circuit it couldn’t be more simple. With a big complex amp this would be different but this design suits it because of the limited nr. of components. And check it out, the 6v filament wiring has just 1 phase as the other one is provided by the chassis. Fancy!

This is quite a historic little amp as the first Fender tube amp was the mid 1940’s Fender Deluxe or ‘Woodie’. After that come the very first ‘TV front’ tweed amps and this one. 

So THIS is perhaps Fender’s tube amp design nr. 2 /3? Amazing how the sound – even in this current technical shape – coming from this ancient thing feels perfectly tuned and balanced to the ear. What the hell did we try to improve over the 7 decades after this?

Now, before we go drooling further all over the historic and very much expired electronic components, let’s take a close look at this little cabinet. It’s Fancy!

 

The Exterior

The cabinet is covered in this wonderful stuff, it’s a kind of vinyl/fabric and gives the amp a bit of a furniture feel. Also the vinyl on the sides feel classy in a way. Not the cheap plastic, skai or faux leather that’s on today’s amps.

A 1952 Fender 600 Amp
There’s obviously some moisture damage on this one, but all of the screws are original. The leather handle was replaced and still needs tidying up as it’s too short and doesn’t make a nice fit under the little brackets.

 

 
The grillcloth has seen better days too, but hell 72 years of use…it’s what it is. The places where the screws hold the speaker in place show damage. Could be movement, shrinking of the material or simply the amp placed facing downwards in a car.

 

 

 
And note the beatifull decorative knobs on the screw ends of the speaker baffle. Really nice.
The Fender logo plate seems to be in perfect shape.

The faceplate shows normal patina, but is still descent for it’s age. The Fender ‘600 amp’ logo is loud and clear, and there’s this just this particular look on vintage fenders when it comes to pilot lights. Just subtle in a way.
 
All of the original screws on there too.

Tubes

Inside the back of the amp it’s what you hope to find. An original RCA 6SJ7, a vintage late 50s Tung-Sol and an RCA 5Y3GT Rectifier. The RCA’s may even be original.

They are probably still good too, but I did end up replacing them with NOS. My intensions are to use this amp and I rather keep these old tubes the way they are now. Original speaker, original TRIAD power transformer. The good stuff.erial 3506. That’s probably right in the middle of 1952, which means we have a 5B1 circuit

Tube chart, serial 3506. That’s probably right in the middle of 1952, which means we have the 5B1 circuit.

Interior & Work

Here’s where the work starts. It’s quite amazing that this thing still worked on these caps that got to reach this age… In the video downstairs you can here examples of how this amp sounded with the original Astrons still in operation, at timecode: 2:35
 
She sounded amazing still, lots of harmonic overtones and a rich midrange. Not what you would expect from a 6inch. It just sounds warm, balanced, and much bigger than it is. You can hear that the amp has a ceiling in what it can give and the low end as far as it has got it demands too much from it. It feels tricky to push the amp as you kind of feel it’s a little too tired to play along.
 It’s a shame but in order to make this amp safe to use longterm, but also to get it to perform well again, the have to be replaced. In the video downstairs you can here examples of how this amp sounded with the original Astrons still in operation. 

The original wax tone capacitors got the benefit of the doubt for now as the intentions for originality above top perfomance are still playing a bit. In time, if we do feel these become a bottleneck, we’ll reconsider. But these are to be treated with respect for originality. If a solder joint is touched, it just is, and you can’t go back. 
Now, the original values of the filter caps are 8uf, 8uf, and 8uf. Those values are hard to find, and I went for 22uf for main filter capacitor and a 10 and 10 on the screen and preamp ones. In reality, they will operate closer to the original value then written, however going to high may result in overfiltering and stiffening it’s response too much. 
Now, the original values of the filter caps are 8uf, 8uf, and 8uf. Those values are hard to find, and I went for 22uf for main filter capacitor and a 10 and 10 on the screen and preamp ones. In reality, they will operate closer to the original value then written, however going to high may result in overfiltering and stiffening it’s response too much. 
After the recap it feels safe to push the amp and put some more milage on. It also performed a lot better as you’ll hear in the video from: 19:24
 

 

I’ve replaced the 6SJ7 and 6v6 with NOS quality tubes, just to protect the vintage ones as my intentions are to use this amp for both recording and live. The old tubes are probably still hanging in there but for how long?

After Service

After this service I immediately found that the amp opened up again and had a much more healthy response. It still has that magic permanent harmonic overdrive and pushed, the 5F1 era champ comes to say hello as well. It can take pedals as long as you keep it slightly under breakup but then it colors so beautifully. I never expected is to be this good, really. But it really is. It’s a tone wonder. Check out the video for more information, the whole process and of course soundchecks!
 
Just a very warm welcome to this wonderful 1952 Fender 600 Amp. Fancy!

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