At Sweet Amps we’re always tinkering with old, unusual & innovative circuits and seeing if there are ways we can apply what we learn to our work on contemporary amps. So, we are proud to introduce the Tweedy Champton, our first custom amp model out of the blocks. The basic idea is simple; take a not-particularly-great-sounding-or-valuable mid-70s Silverface Champ and roll it back in time to the well-loved and valued Tweed Princeton circuit. The Tweed Princetons sounded great but, aside from the tone circuit, they were actually pretty similar to the Tweed Champs from the same period. Throughout the sixties and seventies, there were many revisions to the champ so that, by the late seventies, they didn't sound so great. The Champton fixes that, it turns one of the worst champs into one of the best Princetons. Plus, because we have a knob left over after the conversion, we've added an Negative Feedback (NFB) control. More NFB, less distortion, and vice versa. Sounds goofy but there's quite a range and it's actually pretty useful.
As these are all custom items, they are not all the same. There are very few circuit variations from the Princeton circuit but sometimes we need to change the mains transformer or the speaker, depending on the model. Most of the time, swapping in an Alnico Warehouse speaker makes a huge improvement, so we do that a lot.
We've made a couple of these now (Dec '25) and there are more in the pipeline, we'll try to keep them in stock. You can check whether we have any in stock here. We also offer a "Champtoniser" service for those of you with a lacklustre Silverface Champ that you want sprucing up. There are three different variants of the service:
- Circuit. We'll rewire it to a Princeton 5F2A circuit. £200
- Speaker. We'll install a Warehouse G8A speaker. You won't get the benefits of the circuit change if you leave the stock 70s speaker in there. Add £150
- Mains transformer. If it runs on US voltage and you want it to run on 240V we'll install a UK voltage Hammond 291AEX mains transformer (and drop the B+ to 275V, too!). Add £200.
(Note that if we encounter faults with the amp we will repair them and bill you separately for the work.)
Book your Champ in for the Champtoniser service today!
