I've said for a long time my Champ is the best practice amp ever made. (1973 Silverface model) It's been slightly beefed up a little, but nothing major, and it got a cap job a couple of years ago to replace the 30 year old ones. 6L6 power tube, hottest preamp tube I have, 8"speaker out of a Gorilla amp (replaced a 8 ohm radio shack one that did surprisingly well, and the Gorilla speaker is a matching 4 ohm), and just a few days ago modded it by desoldering the resistor attached to the bass pot, giving it more gain. (a mod I looked up online, it also knocks out the tone controls but man does it sound GOOD....it doesn't need 'em) Don't need any OD pedal, that extra gain did the trick, and if I plug it into a 1x12" cab it sounds like a big amp at bearable practice or recording volume. And loads of dirty... ZZ Top dirty... (TV Dinners, Sharp Dressed Man, maybe even My Head's in Mississippi but I don't know if it will quite match that sound, but it will get the pinch harmonics and even a little feedback)
And it still gets clean if I turn it down. When I can make myself do it
If I need more I plug into my pedal board. OD, Distortion, Flanger-ish Dan Electro pedal, delay and compressor. Oh, and the ever present volume pedal. When I run the Champ it's usually just guitar, cable and amp though.
I've used it for gigs now and then too, when in a small place where the volume level needs to stay really low, especially early in the night. I played it in one place the drummer actually used PENCILS...and the Champ never got above 4 on the volume knob...It's always sounded great, especially through the bigger speaker, but now it's just a sawed off BEAST...I'll never part with it...
