The Excalibur "Geneva" 24-bass is the best value I have come across on a new accordion. It is lightweight with a nice doubled-reed chorus sound. The bass side has major and minor chords for the 8 most often-used keys. Would be nice to have ALL 12 keys, but I guess that would make the instrument heavier and more expensive. The Excalibur keyboard has a few extra notes below the low C, which are missing on most accordions in the "small" class. The longer keyboard was a selling point for me, because I need those notes. They are in a lot of music I play. The weight was the other selling point. I used to have a Chordovox Super V 128-bass with all the electronics stripped out, and it was still too heavy; I would be exhausted after about 15 minutes. I had a Silvertone 12-bass and it was severely limiting, what with only having major chords for 6 keys and a dinky 2-octave keyboard. The Excalibur is the perfect compromise. I intend to take it out and do some street performing when the weather cools off.
Contents copyright 1994-2009 by JW Kennedy.