Fender Excelsior - anyone tried it?

[theyellowcar]

http://www.fender.com/series/pawn-shop-special/excelsior-pro-surf-green-120v/

Came across this yesterday and had my interest piqued. A 15 watt all tube guitar combo with a [b]15"[/b] Eminence driver that retails at £230 online.

Now I haven't been able to find any solid info on the driver to see whether it could handle the low frequencies of a bass, so I thought I would put it to you, the wonderfully informed members of Basschat - could this little thing handle a bass at bedroom volumes, and more importantly, does anyone have any first hand experience to prove/disprove that my theory that it would be a perfectly viable all tube practise amp?

[skankdelvar]

Sufficiently left field as to merit external input:

* Similar Talkbass thread [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/fender-excelsior-would-work-bass-885152/"]here[/url]

* Short review on TDPRI (for guitar) [url="http://www.tdpri.com/forum/amp-central-station/329029-short-fender-excelsior-amp-review.html"]here[/url]

The sense I get is that there's some clean headroom on these amps but that they are designed to sound best at full beans. On first release the stock eminence speaker enjoyed little favour among guitarists, some of whom swapped it out for different units. This shortcoming was rectified by Fender in their subsequent run of Excelsior Pro's and the new speaker has been well-received, afaik.

£230 is a good price for an open-backed 15w Brownface clone if you're a guitarist. Less so, I venture, if you're looking for a punchy bass combo with a touch of hair. Anyway, you could always buy it and flip it here if you don't like it. An Excelsior for around £200 would probably move quite quickly in Other Musical Items.

[skej21]

[quote name='theyellowcar' timestamp='1396985548' post='2419522']
http://www.fender.com/series/pawn-shop-special/excelsior-pro-surf-green-120v/

Came across this yesterday and had my interest piqued. A 15 watt all tube guitar combo with a [b]15"[/b] Eminence driver that retails at £230 online.

Now I haven't been able to find any solid info on the driver to see whether it could handle the low frequencies of a bass, so I thought I would put it to you, the wonderfully informed members of Basschat - could this little thing handle a bass at bedroom volumes, and more importantly, does anyone have any first hand experience to prove/disprove that my theory that it would be a perfectly viable all tube practise amp?
[/quote]

We had he excelsior at work for a while and it's quite nice but the Ramparte totally kills it. It's a little bit more and is only 9 watt (on paper) but the clean tones in the cool and hot channels are MUCH nicer. The aesthetics aren't to everyone's taste but I quite like them and we've sold quite a few to people who didn't like the look but fell in love with the tone. With no tremolo or other voicings it would be a great amp to convert for bass... (Im not sure if it's possible. If it is, i'd love someone to explain how so I can do it!!)

Most importantly, the volume on the 'hot' channel goes to 16!!

Edited April 8, 2014 by skej21

[davedave]

I'm selling one for £180 Ono. I've used it a little with bass. Sounds good. I wouldn't like to hammer it with a bass though.

I did see one somewhere that had been modded for bass. I can't remember where though.

I played my baritone through it all the time and it sounded amazing.

The speaker that everyone seemed to like in there was the Eminence Legend.