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OT - Fender Excelsior Amp in Da House!


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Gearmanndude's gotten his hands on one. All sorts of guitars played through it.

 

[video=youtube;9i7ALy3ga98]

 

[video=youtube;XbBcn_LMkNs]

 

Looks to be clean-ish at noon, definitely seems to take more after a tweed than a blackface. Of course, these vids don't give any indication just how loud noon is on these amps. The plot thickens.

 

Man, I'm wanting one of these more and more.

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The Gearmandude demos sound quite nice. It seems to do well with the OD pedal too. Thanks for posting those. :cool:

 

Looks to be clean-ish at noon, definitely seems to take more after a tweed than a blackface. Of course, these vids don't give any indication just how loud noon is on these amps. The plot thickens.

 

Well, you have his voice for reference, but there's no indication how he's recording everything or whether or not it's all via the camera mikes, or if he's considerably closer to the camera (and mic) than the amp is, etc. etc. IOW - you're right - we really can't say for certain how loud it is.

 

The only comment I'd make about the cleans is a cautionary one - remember that it's staying clean at about noon, but with a Strat or Tele plugged in - single coils will nearly always stay clean at higher volume settings than humbuckers will. Plus, we know he's adjusting the guitar's controls - he tells us as much at one point. I have no idea if the guitar is turned full up, or which pickups he's using the rest of the time... but he's changing various things - you can definitely hear it. Rolling off the volume, even with the Excelsior maxed, will cause the sound to clean up considerably.

 

"How loud" the amp gets will be a matter of two things mainly - the power and the speaker efficiency. The amp is rated at 13 watts, which isn't a ton of power, but it's really more a matter of what you do with it, and that's where speaker efficiency comes in. If it's a relatively efficient speaker, 13 watts can just about keep up with an average drummer and a couple of other musicians in a band / rehearsal situation. If it's an inefficient speaker, it will not sound nearly as loud. In an amp of that type, I'd actually rather have a fairly inefficient speaker. The cleans won't be as loud, but you'll be able to get a wider range of useful tones at real-world volume levels. It won't be as suitable for gigging with a band - especially if you play clean a lot, but it would be better for home use and recording, which is what that sort of amp seems well-suited to IMO - more than as a gigging amp. However, if you wanted to gig with one, you'd probably want a more efficient speaker so that you made maximum use of the available power. The downside to that is that the speaker would probably sound different than the inefficient one, which may change the overall sound - the speaker's own breakup and frequency response colors the overall sound of the amp too...

 

It all comes down to the speaker that it comes with. How it sounds, and how efficient it is. Hopefully it's a good match for the amp and for the way most people are going to use it.

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seems like the mic input keeps it clean a little longer

overall, I'm not yet convinced based on the GMD demos

I'll probably will have to take my pedalssteel to the store and try it out myself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and scare off all the customers

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