Champ LB-100 Tube Amp

This 100 watt amp head recently "surfaced" in a second-hand shop down in Kent. It is one that I produced sometime around 1975, so I was delighted to see it again after thirty three years !! However, I think that the following correspondence with John, a friend of the person who now owns it, will serve to provide a full explanation...........

"Hi John, I've just been looking at your website and at the Champ 200-MP amp that you built in 1972.

A friend of mine bought an amp from a second-hand shop here in Kent a couple of years ago, and it's only recently that I had a close look at it, inside and out, as he believed it was an early Sound City! But I was sure that it was not, and once I'd seen inside I was very sure about that, but knew that it was well designed and built. It seemed quite unique too as I hadn't seen another like it!?

I took some photos of it, and having just looked at the 200-MP on your site, it reminded me of his amp, both inside and out.

I've attached a few photos of this amp for you. Maybe you can say if this is one of your amps and perhaps put a date to it?

Hope to hear back from you.

Best wishes, John."

"Hi John.........Wow!! Yes it is one of my Champ-Amps!! I can only tell you it is from the seventies but exactly when......I don't honestly know! My gut-feeling is about 1975. One thing I can tell you though is that it is one of the later Champ-Amps. It is actually an LB-100 (Lead/Bass 100 Watts). It's a twin channel / master volume but the transformers are deliberately over-size. This improves things a lot, especially on bass guitar! Notice it is on a steel chassis rather than aluminum, which I used originally. Plus, I didn't spray them with any kind of Hammerite paint at the time. (I was trying to keep the costs down!)....Check-out the rust!

Thanks so much for the photos and information on another of my "old beasts"....turning up around 200 miles south from where I had made it and about 35 years later!!

Kind regards, John."

POSTSCRIPT...............

Hi John,

I am the actual owner of the Champ Amp that John of UnLabel sent you pictures of recently. It's a nice little amp but it has been abused over the years: when I first rescued it from the junk shop it blew all its valves as someone had ground down the valve seats (without telling anyone). I didn't return it to the junk shop as was my right as I thought it'd get ruined even more. I instead invested in a local amp guru (Fred) through a local shop called Beat'n'Track who diagnosed the problem and sorted it out (about 5 years ago). Just recently, while it was at a local recording studio, somehow the voltage selector on the back got set to 100 volts without anyone knowing and that blew all the valves again (and a few other things). It went back to Fred, who immediately spotted the incorrect voltage setting. I can only assume that someone thought they were changing the ohmage selector (which is at the other end of the panel but looks almost identical) in order to use a different speaker cab to the Sound City one that it was with. All very annoying and expensive, but the amp is working again now and has had its first live gig outing in 2 years (see attached photo featuring Everyone To The Anderson).

I have decided that it is safer that it does gigs with me than that it stay at the recording studio (despite now being hard-wired to 240 volts). Everybody that uses it (as we share the backline at my gigs in order to get more playing done) is very impressed by it and seem to start looking for similar old valve amps from Birmingham for themselves...

Yours,

Mark Eason

CHAMP ELECTRONICS -" THE VINTAGE VALVE AMP HOSPITAL"

NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND

THE CHAMP LB-100 TUBE AMPLIFIER (c1975)

POSTSCRIPT...............

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