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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 1:55 pm
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BMW2002Ti wrote:
For new Fender amps what helps the bass is good 'lytic main power filter caps, better output tubes, and speaker(s). This combo sure helped some early DRRI's I've redone.


+1

The DRRI that I overhauled the power supply on a couple of months ago acted like it was juiced on 200 cc's of anabolic steriods spiked with crystal meth courtesy of a set of Sprague Atom's, a matched pair of EHX 6V6GTA's, and a Weber 12F150T.

It sounded like "real" Fender amp when I finished with it.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 2:25 pm
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Billm has some new info added to his page on this
including a video clip - some nice mods!

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

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:51 am
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I got mine a week ago from a small Mom and Pops music shop around the house. They only got three and I got one still in the box. Man, this amp sounds great "STOCK" and sounds just as good with pedals. Fender really nailed that home grown delta kinda blues tone with this amp. No need to mod this baby. Thanks Fender!!!! Here is a youtube I did using various pedals and the drive pedal I was using is the TS808 clone I built and I modded to sound like a Landgraff Dynamic Overdrive pedal...... :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LTGZ91H3k

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By bluesguitar65 at 2012-06-05

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By bluesguitar65 at 2012-06-05

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By bluesguitar65 at 2012-05-21

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By bluesguitar65 at 2012-05-24

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:21 am
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Favorite local shop got 3 in, so I got one

Brand new out of the box impression-very pleasantly surprised. Didn't know what to expect at this price point. Only had the volume at 9-10 o'clock and got some nice single coil tones on the bright switch. So far haven't experienced the loud hum others have reported, but I did check to make sure the preamp tubes were well seated. Wanted to play every surf instrumental from the 50s and 60s. Sleepwalk, Apache, etc

then my friend brought out a Gibson Johnny Smith archtop and got acceptable jazz tones on the dark switch.

This is with less than one hour on the amp.

I predict these will be a "cult" amp like the Epi Valve Jrs, with Mercury Magnetics and everybody getting in on different mods.

A lot of fun and tone for only $300


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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 8:41 am
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I have had mine about two weeks and am extremely pleased with it. It sounds great both with/without the Holy Grail in front of it. I thought it might only be a bedroom amp but it sounds even better with the band. It breaks up far to early with my Tom Anderson humbucker loaded Tele but just right with Strat single coils. I havent tried it with P90's but I am going to try it tonight with DeArmond 2K's.

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 11:16 am
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I've had mine for a month or two now and I love it. I initially bought it for a practice amp. It was tube, had a built in tremolo and it was pretty cheap. I absolutely love it. It sounds good with every guitar I own (except my Taylor solidbody, I'll try more toying with it)

I was at a gig and I used my Hot Rod and this little guy squeezed in on a couple songs. It has a tone that is retro sounding, but really sweet. I had it cranked so it was just getting a bit of breakup form the amp. We did a cover (of another cover) that Steve Miller does. I put the tremolo high, and used my PRS with soapbars. Man, it nailed that retro sound we were looking for.

I highly recommend this amp to anyone. It's so great for the price, sounds great for what you get too.

This is the link to Steve Miller playing it (where I live too!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xd5qNCu4HE

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:50 pm
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I finally saw one in person a couple of weeks ago...
I love the look, and they are kind of cool sounding, but ultimately I decided it wasn't what I was looking for--a small practice tube amp.
It's too heavy to move around easily--which was important for me in a practice amp--portability.
I could live with no reverb on it, but I would have preferred it.

Still they're cool amps if they fit what you need from them.

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:14 pm
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Hey Zontar, is there anyone here besides you and me who knows the origin of your sig line......?

Image

:mrgreen:

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY


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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:49 am
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I think somebody else mentioned not long after I started using it.

But maybe the picture will give it away.

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 11:17 am
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Check this out.

http://proguitarshop.com/fender-pawn-sh ... lsior.html

Sounds good here.


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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:18 am
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FXA wrote:


:D

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 9:05 am
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Bought one of these several weeks back with a 20% off coupon....net $240.
Replaced the dark/switch with a 500k ohm pot because I felt dark was too dark and bright, too bright. This was a real inexpensive improvement; $2 for a pot, and $1.50 ea. for 3 matching Fender knobs. I am far from an electronics wizard, but this change was ridiculously simple!

Changed out the stock speaker to an Eminence Legend 1518....huge increase in volume due to it's 102+ db sensitivity and a major increase in weight! I didn't weight the stock amp, but I've seen it listed at 33# and also in this thread @ 36.5#. Mine now weighs around 43# on a not-too-accurate scale. This speaker does also change the sound character. Some may like that and some not, because most of the honkey nasal character is gone.

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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:14 pm
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Hey guys new to the forum but glad to be here. I've had my Excelsior for about 3 weeks and its the best tone for the money as far as Im concerned. I had an issue with switching the tubes but now its screaming. I play with a drummer and it holds its own, I have to point it right at him but it gets the job done. As far as playing out I have not done it yet. I really like this amp for the loot and its just fun to play, tube swap increased headroom and tone imho. Ill post a link to use playing shortly!


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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 2:01 am
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I got mine yesterday. It's funny how you start to build some expectations after reading reviews and watching youtube videos...

First of all, I like it :) From what other people had said I expected it to be bit more quiet. Not the case at all! I live in an apartment (weird one though as my only wall neighbors are a pub) so I could only cranked it up bit past 12 a clock for a little while to test out the crunch. I have db meter and I called it quits when I hit 100db... Yeah, my neighbors love me... Anyway. This is loud enough amp for pretty much anything I need it for, I mean how many times has a sound engineer asked you to turn up your amp?

As to tone, for me this amp is breath of fresh air. Finally something that sounds different! I have Laney GH50L head and 4x12 cab that does the old JCM800 sound better than any new Marshal, I had a Fender Blues junior, that was nice, but bit flat, so I got rid of it. And I had quite few other amps over the years. This one does one thing better than anything I had so far, the dynamics. It does not overly compress the tone, which to me is a great thing! Between amps, pedals, recording process, mastering, Youtube... Everything ends up sounding so flat. This amp has loads of bite and punch and for that alone I love it.

The 15 inch speaker has great bottom end. I know many people swapped it for the Eminence 1518, which sounds interesting. But the extra 10db that billm mentioned in his video... 10db is a lot! Also I am bit worried that it might take away from the quirkiness of this amp. But if I run out of juice, might look in to it. I've had past experiences with Fenders stock valves being what they are... So I am sure I'll swap them some stage. But as a first impression, I like it a lot. Will be giving it a good run through with the band in the next few weeks, so I'll let you know how I get on.
J.P.


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Post subject: Re: Any Excelsior owners here yet?
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 3:34 pm
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I picked up one today. I wanted an amp that oozed cool and sounded good. I got what I wanted. Good bass response, and with the bright switch on, good Fendery tones. This is a blues amp. They sell out quick too. The price will soon rise with demand.


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