Orange Amplifiers Rockerverb 100 MKIII 100W Tube Guitar Amp Head Orange

Bought one of these in black from Tanner at the Alpharetta GA store back in June. Saved up for almost 2 years to finally get one. It sounds incredible! The clean channel sounds nice and chimey, as good as any Fender amp you'd want. The dirty channel can do anything from light grit to fully saturated metal textures. The reverb sounds great. And sometimes the reverb on amps only sounds good in one spot on the dial. This one, it sounds right anywhere you set it. You can get a light reverb, some regular everyday medium reverb, and it also does that long droney surf-echo kinda thing really well too. It's my favorite amp. I tried out all of them, and I could've bought any of them, but I chose THIS ONE for a reason. It's the best. The only cons I can say for it: It's VERY heavy. I was previously using an all tube 240w stereo rackmount setup that was miserably heavy. This amp is pretty much just as heavy. The amp lacks a little treble, especially at low volumes. At high volumes (what this beast was born for) it hits that treble spot perfectly. Many people might be tempted to swap out the tubes immediately thinking they are cheap or low quality or bad sounding or whatever else. I'd urge anyone to wait though. After you get a few hours on the tubes, they do sound better. If you still don't really love it, THEN do a tube swap. But why waste money if you don't have to. Give the stock tubes a chance first. They're actually pretty good. Mine came with some chinese made rebranded ones, and they're great. If you're a "mad scientist" kinda player with tons of pedals, this might not be the beast for you. This is an old-school kinda tube amp, and it sometimes doesn't make your pedals sound like you think they should. The preamp of this amp will react to small changes in signal strength from modulation pedals and might not sound as wonderful as you'd like. It has a tube buffered effects loop, and you should definitely USE IT for delays and reverbs.

Sound is subjective. So I am not going to try to repeat too much what was already said. Let's say this: I live near a radio station FM/ AM and a cell tower in a 1970 home that all your clock radios pick up the one station. So if your amp is not shielded properly or has a weak ground or designed poorly no matter the price it goes back. So needless to say GC hates me as I have the highest return rate. I have tried multiple Amplfiers working up the $$$$. Never solid state. Some boutique Goodsell, Morgan, Buffalo, PRS and mainstream too Peavey, Fender, Mesa Boogie, Bogner, Marshall, Vox and the latest Friedman. All have plus's and minuses. Love Morgan sound, Fender Reverb and Cleans, Marshall classic sounds. Some great amps but only the Friedman stood to do the most for a single channel until Orange Rockerverb Mk3. Drive pedals a thing of the past. Guitar straight in and your effects in the loop. Perfect. Great cleans flexible and drive with its own tone stack. Only amp you'll ever need. You get on board reverb that does the job. Better than any outboard. Besides who wants time based effects before the preamp. It just doesn't sound the best. Tight clean detailed drive to hear every string. Warm cleans and the best part. Built in attenuation. Retain the sound. H&K too Chinese sounding and you can't keep levels for channels the same. Morgan, Fender need effects loops and a real drive channel, Mesa why put reverb on the back?? Seriously? So sorry for the price you get more and I would rather have weight with solid construction. This amp is worth every penny. Flexible and Sound quality isn't that what we are after. Not buying a ton of drive pedals to get the sound the amp should be making in the first place.

This will not be a long review. It would be repetitive. Yes warmth available for clean channel, nice reverb, great dirty channel. Cleans right up with your volume control. You heard all these before. Some things that I prefer over any other amp. The dirty channel sings. No pedals needed. That's why I bought it. I had a Friedman Dirty Shirley 40w Combo. I thought that was great. Tried many amps and when playing a strat always needed pedals. Went crazy with them too. Name it I probably tried it. Lots of boutique too. Not cheap. Fender DRRI / Vox AC15 C1 and X / goodsell / Bogner/ Marshall/ Hughes Kettering/Morgan even Orange OR s. You get the idea. I'm sure you've been there. It's hard to find a good reverb that matches a tank like a fender in any outboard pedal. Even in a good transparent loop. You don't want to put the time based before the input you want it in the loop. It just seems to work best. But you love those single channel sounds. Well I too what worked best for classic rock/ Jazz/ blues/ and hard rock. Took my Friedman and did the ultimate a/b. Sorry should have you tubed it. Took the Orange RVM3 and used it on the Friedman cab. I wanted to hear if the amplifier section was better especially compared to the Friedman with and without pedals. Because you can adjust the tone of your clean and gain channels separately Orange won that fight. Gain vs gain for best clarity and note definition Orange even with pedals in front or gain maxed on the Friedman. The best feature which seems to really kill the lot is the attenuator built in. Lowering volume without killing tone. I will admit I like a creamback speaker with this head vs the vintage 30s orange uses and wish they made the open back in the USA instead of China. But it is a nice cab regardless. So if you listen to this head try it with different cabs. If you are looking for a great head. Yes it's heavy I put it as a con for those who gig. But you do get what you pay for.

I've had the Jim Root #4 Terror for five years before deciding to upgrade to the real deal. I love the little lunch box, but desired the switchable clean channel. I bought this beast after debating between the 50W version, and I'm glad I purchased the 100W! If you need 50W, you can switch two of the EL34's off on the back of the amp. The amp sounds amazing through all of its power ranges and options. You can drive it at the full 100W and use the attenuator knob to play with that power at bedroom volumes. If you want all-out decibels, back off the attenuator and enjoy the savagery. It's amazing how great this amp sounds at all levels - they each have great characteristics and playing at lower volume does not sacrifice tonal quality in my opinion (besides losing that low-end you can feel in your chest). The clean channel is wonderful as well. It sounds Fender-like without the ice pick nature - it's a very smooth sound. When cranked, the clean won't destroy your ears, but will instead thump your chest with beautiful Fender-ish cleans; it's amazing. The clean channel also has some nice overdrive to it if cranked. The dirty channel also has amazing cleans if you back-off the gain (I did not expect this). The mids are slightly more pronounced, but they give the clean channel a run for its money. I haven't seen anyone talk about this, but it's a great feature. It's amazing how many sounds you can get from this amp - cleans, blues/overdrive, rock, metal. Compared to the Jim Root #4 Terror, the dirty channel is remarkably similar. The Rockerverb does have more low-end grunt, but they are tonally quite similar. The driven Rockerverb has better dynamics when driven. The Root's cleans are darker and not as refined as the Rockerverb's. Don't let the 100W dissuade you - the amp is totally usable with this power. Research how amp wattage translates to volume as well (something along the lines of a 10W tube amp is half as loud as a 100W tube amp). The attenuator is the key.

This head is awesome, i upgrade it from my peavey 6505+, the dirty channel is similar in the rockerverb and the 6505+, they are both great but the orange has an infenitely better clean sound.