Just picked up an Excelsior Americana stereophonic high fidelity amp. Really cool guitar/accordion amp and I read a lot of great things. Also got it for a killer deal (at least I think). Here’s a few questions if someone is familiar with the amp, and just general tube amp trouble shooting as well. When I tried it, it wasn’t crazy loud for what I’d expect a tube amp to be. Little buzz but nothing I wouldn’t expect from an older tube amp. I’d say bedroom volume when it’s cranked to 10. This looks to have 2x15s and an 8 inch? I also read these amps have separate speakers for reverb The smaller speaker cable is cut in half. I would assume this is the reverb speaker and it was cut to kill the reverb? Could this cause the lower volume or am I wrong to assume this speaker is for reverb solely? The amp has 3 Amperex 6ca7 made in Holland tubes and an 1 Amperex pre. Are these decent tubes? They look vintage. I have no way of testing them however to know if one or more are toast. The thing needs a serious cleaning and is full of spiderwebs. I have high hopes for it and want to try and do what I can at home without sinking too much cash into it. I’ll add some photos. It’s still in my car so once I clean it up I’ll take some better photos. Thanks so much guys any info and advice is greatly appreciated
The schematics I see on the web show a couple EL34s in the output stage, so if it's not deafeningly loud, it needs to be gone through to find out why. It could be tubes or something else or both. The small speaker does appear to the the reverb speaker, but cutting the speaker wire is not a reasonable way to disable the reverb.
My advice would be to take it to a reputable amp tech, and get it evaluated. Then you can decide how much cash you are willing spend.
