Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

There's a little bit of raspiness in the breakup, especially on the gainy guitar input. The first thing I'd mess with is tubes to tame that. The speaker is probably just fine.

Even though the amp sounds good, I'd love to hear this thing after someone like Ben Fargen upgrades it, or a Mercury tranny overhaul. The transformers look kinda cheap.

But let's face it. GC is giving 15% off $300, so this amp is as cheap as a small modeling amp.

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

There are some mods going around for the Excelsior already.

Most of them include either tweaking the bright/dark values or simply adding a bright to dark knob.

FWIW, there are clips out there of the stock speaker vs an Eminence 15 and the difference was HUGE!

The stock speaker is a really cheap speaker, a nicer speaker goes a LONG way in an amp like that.

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

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.

or simply adding a bright to dark knob.

Add a tone control.

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

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 enclosre. 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.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/deta...nder_excelsior

BillM (famous for his Blues Jr mods) has allready started to mod his Excelsior !

http://billmaudio.com/wp/?page_id=1203

And thank you for the review of the amp.
With a little bit of luck, i will have mine in mid-July.



PS : does that 15" speaker really warm the tone up ?

How loud is this amp before you get a really good gritty break up ?

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

I think of it as one sound I don't currently have.....an early breakup 6V6 amp. If I want something else, I have it with higher headroom clean amps and channel switching high gainers.
This is a swampy blues amp - nothing more, nothing less.

Exactly . . . this can be the basis of a great early Black Keys/White Stripes/Sea Sick Steve/Left Lane Cruiser/SCOTS type of tone.

If you need more gritt, just add your fav Fuzz box ! ...Big Muff...SuperFuzz and, and, and !

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

It's a $300 amp I hardly consider a speaker upgrade, tubes, etc a major investment I'll stick likely have less than $700 invested in the amp upgrading everything one could upgrade.

I think an Eminence Big Ben or Weber could really be fun in this guy.

I would LOVE to hear this driver in the amp :

http://www.jensentone.com/speaker/mod_15_120

On B&W it just reads right to me : Res Freq - 47.5Hz / Sens - 96.5dB


"Full bodied bass speaker with enough highs for both organs and "heavy" guitar players. The MOD15-120 has a full, boomy low-end focus with subtle highs and responds to overdrive distortion with a gritty edge."

[B Bent]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

I finally played it this week as well. Feels more substantial that I thought it would feel. I am with you Joe..... Sounds good, especially the trem. One drawback is that when cranked it falls apart to my ears and ruins everything I had in my mind about how great this amp could be. It is way to brittle and raspy at jamming volumes.

If I needed a cool low volume clean amp with trem, this would be it. If I wanted to crank it with a band I would be crap outta luck with this amp.

I wonder if a speaker swap would help much???

[ratherdashing]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

Fender is going to sell a mountain of these things.

Hipsters/indie rockers will love it because it's a simple retro-looking-and-sounding amp.

Gearheads will love it because it's cheap and they'll want to mod it endlessly (a la Valve Jr).

[indie folk guy]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

I definitely think if you plan to use it at higher volumes you'd want to at the very least upgrade the speaker. The stock speaker is ok at lower volumes but a lot of that raspy/breakup quality is likely the stock speaker.

That Jensen speaker sounds interesting btw.

I will definitely report back when I get mine and do some mods to it.

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

I definitely think if you plan to use it at higher volumes you'd want to at the very least upgrade the speaker. The stock speaker is ok at lower volumes but a lot of that raspy/breakup quality is likely the stock speaker.

That Jensen speaker sounds interesting btw.

I was wondering that myself. The gain sounds smoother on the mic and accordion inputs, but the raspiness on the guitar input made me believe some pre tubes could help cure it, but maybe it is the speaker.

I really like how they divided up the circuits, not just for noise, but to keep the heat away from the cheap motherboard on top. I'm sure they then realized that there's a lot of power running between the top and bottom of the amp, and came to the conclusion that the metal piping was necessary to keep someone from electrocuting themself touching a frayed cable.

The bonus is that the back of it looks just as cool as the front.

[indie folk guy]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

well throwing in different tubes and a new speaker in my mind are things I'd probably do to any amp (much like putting in a bone nut, changing pickups, doing a restring with my preferred brand/model/gauge, etc) so I don't view it as a major expense to me it's just personalizing my gear

[Scott_F]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

On the design separation, my guess it has less to do with noise than it does for overall size constraints for the cosmetics they were going after. That guess being stated, I do like the metal conduit shielding that signal and keeping prying hands off the voltage on the preamp tubes. I'll have to try one. I've got a JBL D130F and an old Blackwidow 15" sitting around here. They nailed the cool look, gotta hand them that. I love retro amps. Looks like an old Gibson.

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

BillM (famous for his Blues Jr mods) has allready started to mod his Excelsior !

http://billmaudio.com/wp/?page_id=1203

And thank you for the review of the amp.
With a little bit of luck, i will have mine in mid-July.



PS : does that 15" speaker really warm the tone up ?

How loud is this amp before you get a really good gritty break up ?

Wow, nice writeup from BillM!

The layout of this thing looks great.

[Aceman]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

An EXCELLENT review Joe. May have to check one out. Not giving up my Pro Jr. just yet though....

[indie folk guy]

Re: Finally tried the Fender Excelsior

Hey Pro Jr's are fun too lol I may have to get one of each I really miss my Pro Jr grrr for selling my blonde pro jr with weber 10A25 alnico speaker.