Checked out the Fender "Excelsior" amp.

[Duffy]

I checked out the Fender Excelsior amp and found it to be very enjoyable. It produced a great sound that you can change up with a bright/dark switch, although there is no other tone shaping knobs on the amp. Just using the tone controls on the guitar gave a decent range of tone control. Cranking up the amp about half way or so was not what you are supposed to be doing in this music store, but I did it anyway and the amp sounded even better - getting into the area where it wants to be.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/ampli...itar-combo-amp

I used a very nice LTD Viper Deluxe, cream, with gold covered real Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro humbuckers and the amp did this guitar well.

The controls on the top of the amp include a tremolo rotary knob that clicks "off" at its most counter clockwise position, and the tremolo speed increases as you turn the knob. It is a very cool sounding tremolo in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of people that like tremolos on amps will like it too. There is the before mentioned bright/dark switch and the volume knob. The knobs are about 1.5 inches in diameter. The amp has a very vintage, old school feel and sound to it.

The fifteen inch speaker did not seem like a slouch to me. It sounded good all the way up to as loud as I got it, which was definitely loud. I'm sure it would be loud enough to use in some bands. The quality of the sound was very good too, in my opinion.

The layout is unlike anything I have seen inside the cabinet. The control section is on top with the preamp tubes. On the bottom is the power amp section with the power tubes and the on off switch, which is a strong metal major toggle switch.

I will consider buying one and I'm sure it would be a perfect amp for a lot of people that want to get into a real tube amp sound in an amp that puts out some serious volume and has good tone.

Just because it is only 299 I would not recommend discounting it as junk. It seems like it is a real decent inexpensive amp with some decent grunt.

I hope this information is useful to people that are thinking about getting into an affordable and really decent tube amp, for use at home or in a studio. It could be used in many band situations too, I'm sure.

[NWBasser]

So, Duffy, did you try an accordian through it?

Apparently, it has an accordian input.

[Duffy]

Seriously, NW, I think it is a fairly awesome amp; and no I didn't try the accordion. However, I read a post where a harmonica player got one and likes it majorly.

I was really surprised at how much I liked the amp. It is larger than I had thought, but then again, with the fifteen inch speaker it deserves to be sizeable. It is also open backed, but I didn't mind that at all - it seems very well built and very sturdy. The vinyl covering looks and feels cool and seems durable. The speaker is definitely substantial, with a big magnet on it. I think Fender did a lot of us a favor making this amp; especially at this price.

It's definitely the type of amp that I can crank up and have a lot of fun with.