Inside Fender's Excelsior

[tele salivas]

Hey benderb9, thanks for the assessmnt as far as your experience swapping tubes out. That's the one thing I want to keep is the level of cleans up and not change the character of the amp, shore it up a little bit. I don't want early breakup, and I think I'll be trying somethin along your combination. The honeymoon was fun, but it's time to put this thing to work. So far, I am not finding any issues with the speaker. Knock on wood, cause it looks like we'd have to take everything out for that to happen.

[Billm]

Fortunately, taking everything out is pretty easy. But yeah, the speaker seems to be up to the task, despite the small magnet.

[tele salivas]

Where does the weight in this amp sit? Is it the enclosure, cause like you say, the magnet isn't very big? You're right, though..not much to taking everything out. I always have a feeling that newer designs have some weird screws or bolts half hidden, but that doesn't appear to be the case with Fender's stuff. It's a simple amp. The circuit board even looks simpler than anything else I've seen in an amp. My wife finally got to hear her harp through it. It's really great for that, too.

[Billm]

Yes, that's a lot of MDF. It would probably weigh at least 5 lb less if it were made out of pine. But with that stylized E grille, I don't think many people will clone the design out of lighter woods. It would probably look OK in a TV-front cab, though.

[3 Chord]

New tubes, new cab, new transformer, $300 to start with and after all that, little resale value. Sounds like you could just find a nice SF non verb Princeton.

Now if you buy one and keep it pretty much stock, I get that. But to each their own.

[Wally]

^^^^^^^^^

[celeste]

Originally Posted by tele salivas

....My wife finally got to hear her harp through it. It's really great for that, too.

fantastic!! I am so glad I was wrong.

[tele salivas]

Originally Posted by 3 Chord

New tubes, new cab, new transformer, $300 to start with and after all that, little resale value. Sounds like you could just find a nice SF non verb Princeton.

Now if you buy one and keep it pretty much stock, I get that. But to each their own.

You could say that about any amp , really.

[benderb9]

wouldn't make a lot of sense to me to mod this amp a lot either. It may be necessary to replace my pre-amp tube sockets with all of the swapping around I'm doing though. Pulled the V2 12AX7 and popped in a 12AT7 and the distortion all but disappered, the tubes you feed it really make a difference. Putting the ECC802 S in V2 dropped the tremolo out it flatout disappeared. Guess there isn't enough gain in that bottle to drive that stage. This thing is a loud 13 watts probably because of the SPL of that 15...are those Fender watts or Marshall watts? I might have to scrounge up a 12AY7 some place...hmmmmm

[3 Chord]

Originally Posted by tele salivas

You could say that about any amp , really.

My amps are stock (unless parts fail). That why I buy them in the first place, because they sound good to me as is.

It's hard to change core tone but it is easy to try and to spend a bunch of money in the process.

[Billm]

I was talking with Shane Nicholas (Fender's amp marketing manager) and he expects that people will be modding Excelsiors like crazy (his words), specifically because of the price: Low investment, lots of upside potential.

Modding amps, like setting up your guitar, is a form of personal expression. Are your guitars unaltered from the day they came off the wall at Guitar Center?

I agree about core tone. It's very hard to change it. But it's often easy and inexpensive to improve it.

My Blues Junior sounds like a Blues Junior. But it will blow a stock one off the stage. My Princeton Reverb looks and sounds pretty much standard. But the sweetness and warmth of the tone, the lush depth of the tremolo makes grown men break out in a boyish grin when they play it.

The Excelsior has an incredible amount of bang for the buck. It's a purposely idiosyncratic amp, with some designed-in limitations. People have already identified issues such as bright being too bright for some and dark being too dark for others, breakup is unattainable at bedroom levels. Because there are, or will be fixes for these issues and other enhancements, the Excelsior will ultimately be a more popular amp and will satisfy more musicians.

[94bamf]

I think some people fail to understand that modding an amp is actually fun for some of us. Sure maybe it is smarter to buy the best sounding amp from the get go, but sometimes the journey is as much fun as the end result.

[middy]

People seem surprised that a 13 watt tube amp with a 15" speaker is too loud to crank in your bedroom...

You want an amp you can crank in your bedroom? Look at something in the sub-watt range. The Bugera V5 has a 0.1 watt mode.

[tele salivas]

Originally Posted by 3 Chord

My amps are stock (unless parts fail). That why I buy them in the first place, because they sound good to me as is.

It's hard to change core tone but it is easy to try and to spend a bunch of money in the process.

You got a point there. Lots of people go down that rabbit hole because they bought something since one of their favorite players, or somebody they know has one and gets a certain sound they find pleasing, or they identify with some characteristic because of slick marketing. But in their hands it's not what they were expecting and then you got people who are "spendng money in the process".

I think most people here have a lot of fun in playing with the components; there's a certain satisfaction in personalization, and a certain satisafaction when working on your stuff. As pointed out elsewhere, you can buy an old amp that may look like this, but it is not going to sound like this, given what components are being used and how they are being used. Most people who've actually heard the Excelsior in person have been pretty impressed with the sound. It's a giggable amp that has some really interesting features. At this price point I was not sure what to expect, but it was low enough to gamble, and I feel I pulled a straight.

[Guitarmadcat]

Originally Posted by Lee Harvey

Dumb question..

Why mod a 300 dollar amp?

Maybe illogical, but you'll never get any money back from the mods. If you took the 300 plus the money to mod it, you could get a pretty decent amp..

Not sure anymore but at one time Valvetrain made a affordable all American made low Watt amp, with speaker opitions and tremolo.

I'm with you man but, why mod ANY amp?

The answers to Lee Harvey's question seem to come from non-players with nothing better to do than waste money and time. There are amps out there at all price levels to perfectly suit all tastes.

As far as I'm concerned, the perfect amp is out there already. If you try an amp and it aint what you want, keep trying until you find the one you DO want!

People that buy amps with the sole purpose of modding them because they're not what constitutes an amp for their purpose are just a bunch of amateurs trying to look professional. Try actually PLAYING and enjoying the amps that exist as-is. Or build an amp from scratch - oh, that would be way beyond certain peoples' intelligence, sorry.

[94bamf]

Originally Posted by Guitarmadcat

I'm with you man but, why mod ANY amp?

The answers to Lee Harvey's question seem to come from non-players with nothing better to do than waste money and time. There are amps out there at all price levels to perfectly suit all tastes.

As far as I'm concerned, the perfect amp is out there already. If you try an amp and it aint what you want, keep trying until you find the one you DO want!

Sorry guys, you're just showing that you're a bunch of amateurs trying to look professional. Try actually PLAYING and enjoying the amps that exist as-is. Or build an amp from scratch - oh, that would be way beyond your intelligence, sorry.

The douche is strong in this one..

[Wally]

Well......some of us have fun modding amps. Some of us mod amps because we want that amp to do something different than what it did in stock form. Some of us mod amps to give other players what they are missing in what they have. Some of us keep amps going for pros...and mod them for pros who know exactly what it is that they are NOT getting from the amp and are wondering WHAT can be gotten out of them. All of this has been going on forever...because perfection does not exist but we humans seem to want to try to find it anyway, right? There are a lot of players and there are a lot of ears...and there is a lot of curiousity....so there will continue to be a lot of changes made to designs that came earlier. That is how we got to the point we are today form the point we were at in the 1930's when we started ---as Muddy WAters put it----'putting electricity' on our instruments. When would we have been better off to stop changign(modifying) these amplifiers???? 1935? 1940? 1953? 1962? 1970? 1085? When shoudl we stop now???? Today?? 2013? Naaaaaah....we gotta keep on looking for the answers....
IT is rewarding to provide good sounding tools to people who understand the tools. I once modded an UL TR....the fellow bought it somewhere, brought it to me and told me to do what I would do to if it were mine. Everything I did was reversible, but that is a much more usable tool now than it was...'last amp he will ever buy' were his words after he had played on it for a couple of weeks. The Doobie Bros. Band tried to buy it after using it as part of a contracted backline for a concert. People mod these amps for all sorts of reasons, and the reasons are valid to many.
OF course, there is some validity to the phrase ''Shut up and Play Yer guitar!" as voiced by Zappa......and the sentiment need not be applied only to amp modification proponents, right?

[Guitarmadcat]

Originally Posted by 94bamf

The douche is strong in this one..

Kindly note I have edited my original text as i acknowledge I may be publicly insulting individuals personally. Not really my intention!

[94bamf]

Originally Posted by Guitarmadcat

Kindly note I have edited my original text as i acknowledge I may be publicly insulting individuals personally. Not really my intention!

Noted, but your edited text is still insulting.

[Billm]

I think the mods should close this thread.

It's supposed to be about the innards of the Excelsior and what's good and bad about it. None of the opinions about whether or not to mod amps (including my own, perhaps) have made any contributions or changed any minds. They are inappropriate and irrelevant.