Fender Champ

[martinw]

Ceriatone are selling high quality completed Champs for £170 and making profit! £700's a rip

Whoa! Now hold on there bald eagle.

The cheapest complete amp (i.e. valves, head cabinet etc) is USD 403, then don't forget to add shipping at USD 198 for 20kg (adding USD10 for insurance) giving a total of about USD 600. That's £353 at today's rates.
Then add VAT at 17.5%, plus duty (both on the whole price inc shipping). Call it 20% altogether plus the shippers admin fee, say £75 roughly, giving total of £428.
That's for a head not a combo. With no worthwhile warranty.

If I was doing a champ build, as a combo, with a UK sourced cabinet, 12 months warranty and a decent speaker, you'd be looking at £450-500 if I used Ceriatone parts and vinyl, not tweed. In Tweed with US sourced parts, that'd be over £500.

[dave_mc]

They manage to get the current reissue/butcher Champion 600 out there for just over £100 and it has a load more components in it; I doubt the old circuit would be much more expensive to produce than the one they've got going in now.
And people who know/care about the original circuit won't pay £700 if they have any sense. The fact that I know about it means that I've found out that a small-ish company named Ceriatone are selling high quality completed Champs for £170 and making profit! £700's a rip

i dunno, i mean the new one doesn't have the valve rectifier which would increase the cost a little, plus presumably the parts in the new one are as cheap as are available (and it's not hand-wired)...

i wasn't aware that ceriatone's were that cheap, last time i looked they were a lot more than that. The postage (from malaysia, isn't it?) is the killer, too. EDIT: martin beat me to it, that sounds a bit more like it. :)

It's just business boys, just business.

yeah, exactly. doesn't mean we have to like it, though (or buy their products). :lol: EDIT: i should point out that I'm not talking about people like martin here, I'm talking about people like Fender who'd make it to a fraction of the quality which martin would, yet still charge about £300 more for it.

+1 on feline's suggestion of the cornell, that thing was awesome (if you're after that tweed-type fender tone)... :)

[FELINEGUITARS]

Unless you just want a throwaway amp - I would seek out something with a bit of quality.

I am over the moon with the little 10w amp that Martin has built me and it will last probably longer than me
My little 10w Cornell is a corker too - especially nice for that Blackface /tweed vibe
Once again it will last the distance. (I'm only selling it as i have glut of nice toys and need to make space)

The other thing is quality
Buy a cheap one and be less than overwhelmed by it - kind of accept it as it's cheap but never have a love affair with it
Chose a well made one really carefully and it'll knock your socks off and have you grinning day in and day out.

It's what happens to me with a good amp
It happens to me with good pickups - like BKPs
It happens to me with good guitars - (and not just Felines - am playing my 86 charvel that I rebuilt and it's brilliant)