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After first hearing about the new Chinese made Fender Excelsior, and seeing how cool it looked, I couldn't wait to try one out. Especially, because it's a boutiquey tube amp that looks vintage at the $300 price point.
At first, you can see that it's got no EQ knob, just a tremolo and volume.
The Bright/Dark switch and 3 inputs of varying impedence is your EQ control, and that's how you've got to approach the amp. It's tone is tubey and breaks up like you'd expect early breakup on a Deluxe Reverb. This amp has no reverb however, which is a bit of a bummer, but simple circuit amps like these deliver better tone when there's literally nothing in the signal path.
Speaking of signal path, which is pure, I was happy to see that the trem knob has a sturdy click 'off' that leads me to believe it's out of the circuit when off. One big negative is that I didn't see a footswitch jack for the tremolo. The tremolo is really great on the Excelsior. That's it's big feature. The other big feature is the Guitar/Mic/Accordion inputs. Make no mistake, they're all for the guitar, with varying input levels and tones.
This feature allows you 3 different gain structures, going from highest to lowest, which is nice when you balance the volume knob against each of them for the desired breakup. And, breakup is what this amp is for....vintagey 6V6 grit.....on the edge breakup. And yes, it cleans up nicely from the amp or guitar.
Overall, it's got good tone, although a tiny bit raspy compared to much more expensive amps like Carr, Bad Cat, and Matchless. And this is one reason I really may buy this amp. First of all, GC has 15% off on anything $300 and over. Second, I KNOW that this is going to be a modder's big priority, such as the Epiphone and Blues Jr. upgrades were.
That means that Mercury Magnetics, and dozens of guys on the net will soon have circuit upgrades to make the amp perform as good as possible.
My opinion is that a few mods will make this an amazing platform for tweaking, just because it already sounds good and looks way cool.
One look into the back of the amp reveals old world coolness, with a few circuits separated....possibly for noise reduction. If so, it works, because the noise floor is very low. They did the right thing by creating a very simple amp with tube sections and transformers all pulled far apart from each other within the enclosure. And it's got a 15 inch speaker that keeps it from ever sounding thin.
The mods I'd really like to see are component changes to dial the Bright/Dark switch exactly to my liking. Right now, it's a little too bright and too dark. I'd pull them closer in contrast to each other.
The Guitar/Mic/Accordion inputs could possibly be tailored better to my personal liking as well. I can't wait to see if those mods are simple to do.
The tremolo sounds great, but I'd want to install a footswitch jack on it. I don't know why they didn't at least give us that, considering it's main feature is tremolo.
And finally, I don't know what tubes it came with but I'd be inclined to do a lot of tube swapping with the amp until it's hit it's tonal peak.
Overall, I hate to say it but I've been very impressed with Fender's Chinese guitars and amps. It'll will either be good for Fender, or threaten their MIM and MIA lines, just because the Chinese stuff is made so well with cool lines such as the Modern Player and the Excelsior. In the current economy, this price point is very attractive.
Instant classic. They're going to sell these by the boatload, literally.
At first, you can see that it's got no EQ knob, just a tremolo and volume.
The Bright/Dark switch and 3 inputs of varying impedence is your EQ control, and that's how you've got to approach the amp. It's tone is tubey and breaks up like you'd expect early breakup on a Deluxe Reverb. This amp has no reverb however, which is a bit of a bummer, but simple circuit amps like these deliver better tone when there's literally nothing in the signal path.
Speaking of signal path, which is pure, I was happy to see that the trem knob has a sturdy click 'off' that leads me to believe it's out of the circuit when off. One big negative is that I didn't see a footswitch jack for the tremolo. The tremolo is really great on the Excelsior. That's it's big feature. The other big feature is the Guitar/Mic/Accordion inputs. Make no mistake, they're all for the guitar, with varying input levels and tones.
This feature allows you 3 different gain structures, going from highest to lowest, which is nice when you balance the volume knob against each of them for the desired breakup. And, breakup is what this amp is for....vintagey 6V6 grit.....on the edge breakup. And yes, it cleans up nicely from the amp or guitar.
Overall, it's got good tone, although a tiny bit raspy compared to much more expensive amps like Carr, Bad Cat, and Matchless. And this is one reason I really may buy this amp. First of all, GC has 15% off on anything $300 and over. Second, I KNOW that this is going to be a modder's big priority, such as the Epiphone and Blues Jr. upgrades were.
That means that Mercury Magnetics, and dozens of guys on the net will soon have circuit upgrades to make the amp perform as good as possible.
My opinion is that a few mods will make this an amazing platform for tweaking, just because it already sounds good and looks way cool.
One look into the back of the amp reveals old world coolness, with a few circuits separated....possibly for noise reduction. If so, it works, because the noise floor is very low. They did the right thing by creating a very simple amp with tube sections and transformers all pulled far apart from each other within the enclosure. And it's got a 15 inch speaker that keeps it from ever sounding thin.
The mods I'd really like to see are component changes to dial the Bright/Dark switch exactly to my liking. Right now, it's a little too bright and too dark. I'd pull them closer in contrast to each other.
The Guitar/Mic/Accordion inputs could possibly be tailored better to my personal liking as well. I can't wait to see if those mods are simple to do.
The tremolo sounds great, but I'd want to install a footswitch jack on it. I don't know why they didn't at least give us that, considering it's main feature is tremolo.
And finally, I don't know what tubes it came with but I'd be inclined to do a lot of tube swapping with the amp until it's hit it's tonal peak.
Overall, I hate to say it but I've been very impressed with Fender's Chinese guitars and amps. It'll will either be good for Fender, or threaten their MIM and MIA lines, just because the Chinese stuff is made so well with cool lines such as the Modern Player and the Excelsior. In the current economy, this price point is very attractive.
Instant classic. They're going to sell these by the boatload, literally.
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