

I have learned more about harp amp tone from the Champ than from any other amp. I really don’t know how much I have invested in the Champ now, but it is a ridiculous amount – certainly more than the value of the amp. The Weber speaker made the Champ darker and warmer, and Steve was right: The Veteran speaker crunches like a mutha with a brighter, raspier tone. I looked around for a 10-inch cabinet and finding none I decided to swap it into my Champ, removing the nice Weber alnico speaker. Before guitar player Steve Mignano headed off to tour with Cassie Taylor and the Soul Cavalry he gave me a Warehouse Veteran 10-inch speaker and said, “It crunches like a motherf-er.” Hmmmmm, this I had to hear.

A sleeper amp, with big punch and crunch in a small package. A few months later Bruce installed a Hammond 15-watt output transformer and a choke. Big improvement, but I wasn’t finished quite yet. So I asked Bruce Collins at Mission Amps to voice the tone stack for harp using NOS Soviet K40Y paper in oil tone caps. It was sounding GOOD.īut not good enough. Again, the Champ settled into this configuration for some time. More tube swaps followed, finally ending with the 5751 in the input section, a vintage black plate GE 6V6 in the power section, and an NOS “Coke Bottle” Sylvania 5V4G rectifier. I discovered the optimal mix was ZERO, so I removed the NFB circuit and the pot (which was mounted on the back part of the chassis) and used the hole where the pot had been to mount a line out jack. (Read: spend more money on it.)įirst I installed a pot in the negative feedback circuit so I could adjust it to find the optimal mix for crunchy tone. Then one day I lost my mind and decided to trick the amp out more. The Champ settled into that configuration for several years. I tried several other various speakers and finally settled on the Weber 10A-1250 with H dustcap. Then I altered the baffle so it would accept a 10-inch speaker and tried a Jensen P10R. Next I replaced the speaker with a Jensen reissue P8R.

No matter what combination of preamp and power amp settings we used. The Champ is a good test bed for things like that because its circuit is so simple. ARP Od-yssey synthesizer, and a Fender Rhodes piano but found in each case that it over-loaded and broke up very easily with our Hohner 1250 Lead Guitar Amp attempts to produce an ordinary clean sound.
#Hohner 1250 guitar amp generator
First I tried several new input tubes, and that is when I learned that the 12AT7 tube is a terrible tone generator and the 5751 is great. It was the coolest little amp I had ever heard for harp, but I just could not leave it alone. The picture above was taken the day I brought it home. The amp sat in her living room, occasionally singing church music, for 35 years. I got the amp in Sacramento in 2005 from the estate of a woman who bought it new in 1971 along with her new electronic organ. HOHNER - HISTORICAL GUITAR MODELS page 2 54 Image Category Model Name Year from-to Description former retail price Acoustic Delta 44 J ca. No sane person would ever spend so much time and money on such an inexpensive small amp, would they? It is irrational.
