Cathbard

They're pretty loud. If your drummer is an animal you won't have perfect cleans but hopefully whem you are playing clean he won't be so savage on the skins. But nah man, plenty loud enough. If you like the sound, grab it. If you know what you are doing you'll have a mic in front of the cab anyway. You'll be fine. They're like AC30 and JTM45 sort of volumes, both amps gigged by everybody who was ever anybody.
When you get a bit more money channel it into buying some really nice cab. It's an amp you can grow into.

What were you playing again? Were you playing punk or was that a side conversation? If it was for punk, yeah, go for the Orange. Fantastic punk amp, you'll love it. Leave the master volume on 10 at all times .

__________________
Gilchrist custom guitar
Yamaha SBG500
Telecaster
Ibanez Iceman
Roland GP-8
Quadraverb
Abbey Harmonic II
Marshall JTM45 clone
Marshall JCM900 4102 (modded)
Marshall 18W clone
Fender 5F1 Champ clone
Marshall 1960A

Cathbard Amplification

epiphone098

Yeah it's more pop punk, my drummer plays heavier stuff so I'll need to be able to pull of some chuggy lows.

And I'm assuming that most places will mic the amp, but you never know. If I ever play backyards or maybe a less-than-prepared venue I may need to rely on the amp alone.

red.guitar

I've been playing in a punk rock band for the past few months now, and I'm in basically the same predicament as you. I'm looking for a sold tube head to go with my mesa that won’t break my bank.

I tried the new DSL pretty extensively, and was less than impressed with it. It was wayy too fizzy IMO.

I was actually in the studio the other night, doing some scratch tracks, and I got the opportunity to try out the orange. It was a sweet amp, just not my cup of tea. It’s something about the midrange on these amps that I don't like.

Our producer also had a Jet City JCA 20 head there as well. I played with it for a while, through a mesa 412, and just fell in love with it. With the mesa cab, this amp has so much bottom end. I had the gain at around 12 o'clock and this thing got pretty damn distorted. What really impressed me was the clarity of the amp. It didn't bog down in the low end, or have any harsh high end to it! I liked it that much, that I'm actually going to pick one up!

I just thought that it may be worth taking a look at. You can pick up the 20 watt head for like $300 here. The 20watt version is more than loud enough for any live setting.

__________________
Guitars:
Epiphone 97' slash snakepit Tele MIM Fender 85' MIJ Contemporary 22 Strat
Amps:
Kustom 36' Coupe w/ Cannabis Rex Jet City JCA50H Mesa Rectifier 212
Randall 212+115 Cab

Check Out My Band - 10th Avenue

Cathbard

You don't buy big amps for the sake of the audience you do it for on stage sound. Front of house is looked after by the PA so you don't have to worry about that. The problem with small amps is that you are totally reliant on the foldback mix to hear yourself and that is a recipe for failure.
However, the Orange is plenty loud enough to hear yourself over the drummer, especially playing punk.

__________________
Gilchrist custom guitar
Yamaha SBG500
Telecaster
Ibanez Iceman
Roland GP-8
Quadraverb
Abbey Harmonic II
Marshall JTM45 clone
Marshall JCM900 4102 (modded)
Marshall 18W clone
Fender 5F1 Champ clone
Marshall 1960A

Cathbard Amplification