Had one years ago and sold it because I thought the clean channel wasn’t loud enough but remember the drive channel being fantastic.
So when one came up locally this week at a great price and with a WGS ET-65 speaker, I pounced on it. Plugged it in and was a bit disappointed, it sounded a little harsh and bright to my ears. A quick look at the valves revealed that they were the original Orange valves from 17 years ago! Put a couple of old Brimar 12AX7’s in V1 & V2 and a Marshall in V3 and man does it sound good now! Haven’t got any EL34’s, so the power valves will have to wait, but I’m happy with the way it sounds already - lovely tones that made me want to keep playing, so I’m well happy.
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The clean channel takes pedals beautifully (and is louder than I remember, plenty loud enough to gig) and the drive channel sounds great no matter how much gain you dial in - I really like the drive channel channel on the edge of breakup, using the guitar’s volume to clean up and pushing it with pedals for driven sounds. I’m going to try it with an extension cab I’ve got which has a Canabis Rex - I reckon it’ll sound great mixed with the WGS speaker.
The clean channel does take pedals brilliantly, especially heavy distortion and fuzz. The dirty channel loves clean boosts, overdrives and vintage fuzz.
The guitarist in the band I play bass in uses one with about half a dozen different pedals from an MXR Micro Amp up to a Foxrox Octron and a Marshall Drivemaster and it sounds great with all of them. It’s the perfect volume for gigging with a reasonably loud drummer (and a bass player who loves fuzz ) too.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
I threw a load of drive pedals at it earlier - Barber Burn Unit, Sparkle Drive, Micro Amp, Mosky Silver Horse - and they all sounded great, had fun stacking them too... the clean channel sounded great with my ME-50 in front of it, with a bit of compression and noise gate and the RAT drive sounded so good I’ve just bought a Mosky RAT to try out!
The build quality is great too, I’ve never seen a single one with any fault other than a blown valve - even that’s rare since it doesn’t run them very hard - and it’s cathode-biased so replacing them is plug and play.
I really have no idea why Orange discontinued it - or why values remain so low (although we should possibly keep quiet about that ).
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
Or you might be weird like me and love the lo fi gritty madness from delays and mods before distortion
It’s pretty good, but it doesn’t quite have the bottom end and punch of the 30. The low-volume settings are very useful at home though. My guitarist friend had the Brent Hinds version as a backup/alternative for a while - it did record very well, but didn’t quite cut it with the band in a room even through the same 2x12”.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
No, although the valves could have.
I'm not aware there were any differences in the transformers either, I think that's just seller-BS.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
Knowing that it takes pedals well, I wish I’d had the pedals then that I have now!!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder
My trading feedback - I'm a good egg
I had one but I should’ve spent more time with it . Sold it cos it was last in and I needed the cash. I used a mates r30 combo quite a bit and the thing I didn’t like about it was likely the speaker.
Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder
My trading feedback - I'm a good egg