Should I buy an Orange Rocker 15, or ....?

pmbomb

I have a Blackstar ID:15 TVP, I'm ready to tinker with pedals and want to try a valve amp, looking at the Orange.

I play mostly crunchy/classic rock or metal, not contemporary super high gain stuff. At home mostly, with the occasional studio session or pub open mic.

Anything else I should look at?

Ta.

and ps what kind of depreciation am I looking at from new to a week old?

terada

Have a look at this video. Not exactly the same amp but similar. 

I ise a 50watt orange and have plenty of headroom for pedal fun, but not sure whether that would be the case with a 15 watt orange - they tend to get dirty quicker than other amps. 

As to price, don’t forget to haggle, that way you’ll minimise any loss, but if it really concerns you  buy second hand - problem sorted!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UOxpUbif8rA

Grunfeld

Blackstar HT-20 head?

I have one of these going cheap btw so I obviously want to sell it, however it's valve, suitable for home use or gigs, and it's as classic rock as they come.  It also does the British/ US voicing thing well (although I'd say the British sound is best).

Funnily enough I went to Orange myself -- but not valve -- I use the CR-120 head which is solid state.

pmbomb

ta, not sure I'm ready to get into heads/cabs yet, have only ever played SS combos. hmmmm.

Jonathangus

Marshall Origin series?

jesone

I play a Jubilee 2525 head (on 5 watt setting) into a 2x12 in my home & am adding a Vox AC10.
i don’t to Strats but LPs, 335s, and Teles all sound great. I use a Kemper too when I need to be really quiet but I don’t use pedals with this.

Fez

The Marshall Origin is defo worth checking out also Fender drri

Creed_Clicks

Played an OR50 the other night at a gig, and was not impressed at all My Quilter 101 mini head sounded better, to me anyway.

Kitsune

I was looking at the Orange Rocker 15 Head the other day. Would be a lot more attractive sale if it was in a covering! Not a fan of the terror box look at all.

andyp

I have a Rocker 15 combo for use very like you describe above and I love it. I got a good deal on a package from GAK last October / November(ish)... I'll go and see if I can find the price I paid, but I got the amp, official fitted Orange cover, footswitch and a cable to connect it including next day delivery for less than the list price of just the amp. I think I paid £550 and the amp was listed at £599. It was on a package deal anyway but I asked them if they could do anything and the guy (who was fantastic start to finish) came back with a deal price and it was a much better deal than I'd seen anywhere else.

The original amp had some kind of issue after 3 or 4 weeks but they replaced it within 24hrs and took the old one away. Absolutely zero issues and they were brilliant to deal with. The amp itself is great. I attempt to play AC/DC, Free, Led Zep... Foo Fighters, bit of Metallica, Hendrix (of sorts) a bit of Peter Green type stuff, pretty varied really as I take lessons and it can cover quite a lot of stuff. I'm very much still learning more than playing, but it's a fantastic amp. It works brilliantly with any of the pedals I have and is very versatile. 

My only niggle is it sounds very dark with the gain cranked up and I'm not sure how to dial that out (like I say though, I'm learning as much as anything else) so I find it quite hard to get a metal tone I like that's not overly dark. The EQ controls and the gain are very responsive but I can't quite get a Metallica sort of tone from the amp without dicking about with a pedal too, but I've not spent all that long trying to resolve this yet - I love just playing it where it seems to work best for me... Bass at 11 o clock, mids and treble at 1 o clock, gain just a hair past halfway. I use the 1 watt mode most of the time with volume around half and it's perfect for home use for me. It works great in the half watt mode too, but for the room I have and my standard of playing the 7 and 15 watt modes are too loud for me, but there will be decent headroom in the higher watt modes.

Build-wise, other than (what I think was a dodgy valve) mentioned above, it's rock solid and very noticeably better built than my Marshall DSL 5 (which was about £200 less to be fair). Everything about it feels reassuringly strong and well made. The power cable goes in vertically up through the opening in the back, which is a pain in the ass if you need to disconnect and reconnect it much, but mine sits in one place all the time so it's not an issue for me at all.

Can't think of much else at the moment, but I love it.

pmbomb

@andyp what a staggering deal you got well done, I'm going to ask you to negotiate my next house move.

I bought one too.

Yes it's amazingly loud, 0.5W was still plenty for a noisy 2 player jam but I'm going to see if I can get away with 1W for the headroom.

Early days for me and I don't know enough about amps to give a meaningful comparison save to say it seems to do what it should.

pmbomb

The original amp had some kind of issue after 3 or 4 weeks 

Can you describe it?

The EQ controls and the gain are very responsive 

Yeah the gain difference between 11 and 1 is quite something.

andyp

pmbomb said:

@andyp what a staggering deal you got well done, I'm going to ask you to negotiate my next house move.

I bought one too.

Yes it's amazingly loud, 0.5W was still plenty for a noisy 2 player jam but I'm going to see if I can get away with 1W for the headroom.

Early days for me and I don't know enough about amps to give a meaningful comparison save to say it seems to do what it should.

This prompted me to check... I’m wrong, sorry. I looked back in my email and it was £629 I paid for the bundle. £685 was the best price I could get for the amp and footswitch for elsewhere. So I was sort of right. Think the amp was listing at £649 at the time. Sorry for the bum information. The bundle GAK had was advertised at £669.99 and they dropped it to the £629, think the switch is £25ish, the cover was something similar too, so it was a good deal. Just not as good as I said above.

The first amp made a crackling noise then a pop and the dirty channel died. It was sitting idle but turned on and just went on me. It was 6 weeks after buying it, I just checked that too. GAK were first class to deal with.

pmbomb

still a good price, I paid £599 for the amp delivered.

good to hear re GAK.