Price paid: £ 450
Purchased from: G.A.K Brighton
Features: Hi, this is my first review. I recently bought an Orange or15 head to use with an Orange 112 cab. It has one channel, an fx loop, 15w or 7w output with standby and volume, treble, mids, bass and gain knobs. Its pretty basic and has no built in reverb or other effects. I'm not bothered about the lack of fx though because the amp is all tube and sounds amazing without them. I'm a novice at the guitar and try to play stoner/doom, heavy metal, the blues, indie, grunge and a little heavy punk. The OR15 does all of these styles without adding pedals. I play at home and keep the noise to a minimum. I can't say if this thing gets loud enough to gig as I have no experience there. I would've rated the amp higher if it had a built in reverb. // 9
Sound: I use an Edwards Les Paul which has a pair of humbuckers, the ones it came with. Its a great guitar. My playing style at the moment is mostly power Chord based doom metal and the or15 is perfect for this. I'm still struggling with some of the fuller chords (F, barres) but other chords sound full. One thing I will say is that this amp is a bit unforgiving and will show up any mistakes you make. I made up a reggae tune the other day (using the b Chord up and down the neck) and the amp handled palm muting really well with a thick, chunk chunk sound.
I wanted an amp for quiet use at home. The or15 does this. Put the gain at 1 and even with the volume all the way up its not as loud as a telly. Put the vol on 1 and turn up the gain you get the same quiet levels even at full gain. Messing around with the eq gives a variety of different tones. So far I've gotten clean to overdriven blues, Black Sabbath and AC/DC tones. The reggae I tried was very clean using a Morley wah pedal and sounded authentic. I'm sure you could do a lot with this amp. Grunge for sure, indie, blues rock and maybe even jazz but if you want ultra clean tones this amp isn't for you. The clean tone is stunning, warm and mellow but not for everyone. I love it. The gain is filthy. At lower settings it covers overdrive and light breakup, go past twelve and you have a really cool fuzzy, not harsh sounding distortion which is pleasing and good for rock. At 3 o'clock and beyond you get a massive distortion which will put stoner or doom metal players into heaven. I'm not sure about modern metal. I'm sure that with a suitable pedal you would get those sounds but the OR15 doesn't have the right tones for that, even though the gain level is crazy. That said I'm still learning, I may be wrong. This amp has the tones I was looking for and for me its perfect. // 10
Reliability & Durability: Its cool, it feels solid, looks solid and rocks solid. Its solid. I love the Orange colour as it really brightens up the room. I bought it new and its in perfect condition with not a mark on it. I bought it from G.A.K Brighton who were very helpful. I had problems making payment due to my bank blocking the purchase but the staff at G.A.K helped to get everything sorted out and now, thanks to them I have this great little amp. Thanks. I never plan to gig (as I'm crap) but I think this amp would be able to withstand touring. Like I said before, its solid. // 9
Impression: I've been playing for about a year now and own a few pedals. I put a bass big muff into the front of the amp and it worked really well giving an Acid King tone. I tried my Morley wah and again it sounded great, even though I don't like the Morley very much. I also ran a Danelectro Cool Cat chorus through the fx loop and was pleased with the way it sounded, once I figured out how to plug it in. It all worked as it should. If the amp was nicked or got broken I would be gutted as I would have to save up for another one. I love this amp. The only gripe I have is that it was very expensive. £450 is a lot of cash and some other amps I looked at were cheaper. I watched videos about the Blackstar HT5, the Jim Root Terror and the Laney cub. In the end I chose the OR15 as the distortion was more to my taste. Its also a high quality amp.
One final note. Even though I play fairly quietly this amp gets bloody loud. My girlfriend put both the vol and gain at 12 (in 7w mode) and we nearly went deaf. Its LOUD and it roars. // 8
