• Delightful - You may bury me with it.

  
  As reviewed by RichardRocks on 9/29/2010

  I have been playing for 30 years and I picked up one of the Orange AD30TC things about 2 years ago. It will never be sold. The two channels are fully independent. Separate and independent gain, master and eq controls for each of the two channels gives you two fully independent sounds at the touch of a button (footswitch). This is like two amps in one - I know thats cliche but also totally true. When tweaked properly, and with a few footpedals thrown in for flavor you can do anything you need to do with this baby... Except possibly metal which I dont play. This is a pro amplifier. Heavy, lots of steaming glass tubes glowing inside. The chasis is baked white enamel. Who does that? Its like a porcelain chasis. This monster cabinet is a very heavy load and can't be easily carried around. That being said it is the weight and the beefieness that makes the thing so solid sounding. Describing sounds is like describing colors.. You can't do it justice. You need to sit down and make friends with it, play it a bit, talk to it, let the tubes heat up, break in the V30 Celestions... Then make it blow your walls down.. Like old Hendrix, Iron Butterfly, Stones, and the original Jimmy Page style electric blues. Orange makes a truly great and original quality 1960's like amplifier in the AD30TC. Not many people own them, and when you take one out to a show everyone will be asking you about it, complimenting you on your sound and wishing they had one too. Some say the AD30 is too dark sounding. I don't agree 100 percent. It may be slightly dark tonally but when I am using a bright sounding bridge pickup it actually does not get that breaking glass sound I hate so much. It does however snarl. But it leaves out that hissing sizzle you get from a cranked Fender or a Big Muff pedal (sounds I run away from). This amplifier is like a classic car. A new car is lighter and has a fancy paint job, but an old car is made with more metal and is more solid. It is more expensive to produce. It comes with less bells and whistles and in the long run everyone loves your old classic '55 cadillac and no one cares a bit about your new hundred grand Corvette. This is not a show off amp. It is a real players amp. Record it, play it live, mic it use it to hold down your trailer home during a tornadoe. Its also more boutiqee than any boutique amp. Drop a few grand and take one home. You'll keep it forever and people will always say your tone sounds amazing. I don't work for Orange so I have no reason to say nice things about them other than to help others decide for themselves. If you need a solid professional sound with gain, volume, bass and treble... and two different versions or volume levels this is the amp for you. Look at what you get from other amplifier manufacturers in the same price range... Dozens of switches, led lights and knobs. Get it - transistors are cheap for manufacturers - Big Ballsy amplifiers with tube rectifiers and massive transformers like the AD30TC are anything but cheap to produce. Here you get a military grade - industrial quality - great sounding - simple - instant classic - that will last a lifetime. It's the equivalent of buying a brand new '57 Chevy today from the dealer.

  11 of 12 people found this review helpful.
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• Orange AD30 TC Combo

  
  As reviewed by Jerome on 6/20/2010

  Pros: 30 watts. 2 distinct channels. Pre-amp is out of the circuit when the master volume is all the way up. The channels are voiced a little different from each other. Channel one is brighter and has more headroom. Channel two is 'ballsier' and a little darker. Cons: No Reverb. Price (You pay for what you get!) Review: This amplifier 'sings' at a relatively low volume (Compared to a British 100 watt 1/2 stack) so it is easier to get to the 'sweet' spot at smaller venues. I was able to get nice rock crunch as well as clean blues tones from this amp. I think this amp shines most when you drive the power tube section of the amp. Channel one is kind of AC30ish, Channel two is kind of JTM45ish ("Beano" comes to mind) The EQ section has treble bass and mid, on both channels with gain and master volume on both channels. The EQ is interdependant ie: what you do to one affects the others, and it is surprisingly potent to affecting the overall sound. I liked the sound best with the bass at 9 o'clock and the mids at 12 and the treble at about 5 o'clock. Turn up the master and set gain to taste. This amp. is by far the best built production amp I have ever seen.(I have been playing since 1972) (I was 14 then). The amp easily rates 5 stars... go buy a reverb unit if you want one. Cheers ---J---

  6 of 7 people found this review helpful.
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