OR15/PPC112 or CR60C: Which would you choose?

[tomsy49]

I have an opportunity to get one of these amps. Both of them are with in a couple hundred bucks of eachother (used OR15). My question is which of these amps would you prefer to have?! I know the crush pro get a lot of great reviews but wondering if the OR15 provides anything that the CR60C just can not replicate?! I love the orange tone and to my understanding the OR15 is voiced a little closer to the old 70's amps where the Crush is a Rockerverb circuit.

[Boy_Narf]

What you don't want to hear is... Play them both and you will know within a matter of seconds

My vote would go for the OR15 and PPC112. You could always leave the 112 at your jam space, and plug it into a 412 when you get home More room for future growth.

But you NEED to play them side by side to know for sure. I heard the CRPRO series on a few recordings and honestly wasn't a fan of the 60, or 120 combo. The 120 head does sound good with a proper EQ though.

[tomsy49]

What you don't want to hear is... Play them both and you will know within a matter of seconds

My vote would go for the OR15 and PPC112. You could always leave the 112 at your jam space, and plug it into a 412 when you get home More room for future growth.

But you NEED to play them side by side to know for sure. I heard the CRPRO series on a few recordings and honestly wasn't a fan of the 60, or 120 combo. The 120 head does sound good with a proper EQ though.

I live over 2 hours from a music shop and they don't usually have a ton of Orange selection. So i was looking for opinions haha.

[rich724]

Here are my thoughts...

When was the last time the Or15 had maintenance and are you wiling to properly keep the tube up to specs?

This is what has turned me off of tube amps. I have a C120H/PPC 2x12 OB, a Quilter Tone Block 200/1x12 cab and an CR35LDX and couldn't be happier never to worry about tube fragility/failure again. Even though nothing is bullet proof, after 50 years of playing I just have more faith in todays solid state amps and the tone is much better than it was 10-20 years ago. Considering I play live, I find that the tone difference is lost on the audience. Now it would be a different story if I were recording. IMHO I think the tube amp belongs in the studio and let the SS amps hit the road/stage.

And that is my 2 cents.

[Boy_Narf]

Interesting. I've had some of my tube amps for over a decade. I have changed the tubes when I first got them, but that is it. Is there some maintenance I should be doing that I don't know about? That said, yes there is always a small chance you could have a tube failure. SS is more reliable for sure.

I would always go for tube over SS, but that is my opinion. I much prefer the feel of tube amps. Tone can be extremely close, but they never feel the same.

There are enough demos on YT that should give you an indication of what each amp sounds like. What style of music do you play?

EDIT: I do remember one scenario, where I was in my college dorm where we had a power surge while I was playing, and the tubes in my Traynor amp blew. Not sure what would have happened with an SS amp, but that has been my only "issue" with tube amps. I was part of a band for the past 6 months, where one guy had a Fender Reverb, and the other had a Traynor YCV. They slammed them around, dropped them, chucked them in the back of their pickup trucks, and no issues. I would cringe sometimes while they were loading their amps, but no issues. I don't think reliability is something you really have to be worried about, unless you frequently drop or throw your amp across the room.

[Norrin Radd]

I would choose the OR15 and it wouldn't even be a close decision. I dislike SS guitar amps. They lack life to me.

If you're going solid state, may as well save for a Kemper and have all the amps you could possibly ever need and REALLY close to being tube.

I actually think the Kemper's place is in the studio and tube amps are for live performance. Although I'd always choose tube in every situation for well, reasons, others do not. YMMV

[Ronnie Robinson]

What you don't want to hear is... Play them both and you will know within a matter of seconds

My vote would go for the OR15 and PPC112. You could always leave the 112 at your jam space, and plug it into a 412 when you get home More room for future growth.

But you NEED to play them side by side to know for sure. I heard the CRPRO series on a few recordings and honestly wasn't a fan of the 60, or 120 combo. The 120 head does sound good with a proper EQ though.

I live over 2 hours from a music shop and they don't usually have a ton of Orange selection. So i was looking for opinions haha.

I agree with boynarf ! If money is tight and u our looking at something that you might keep for a few years then I'd say make that journey. Personally I'd always go with tube ...... reliability in my view is not an issue , your audience may not know the difference but you probably will.

[rich724]

Interesting. I've had some of my tube amps for over a decade. I have changed the tubes when I first got them, but that is it. Is there some maintenance I should be doing that I don't know about? That said, yes there is always a small chance you could have a tube failure. SS is more reliable for sure.

.

Tubes are like light bulbs—they could go out at any time. Generally, if you’re playing hard, tube life can be anywhere from six months to a year, although tubes can last much longer than that. Preamp tubes can last indefinitely. Like strings they wear over time. You may have played them for a decade but I bet you would have noticed a difference had you changed them regularly.

http://www.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Fe ... enanc.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Boy_Narf]

Oh, changing tubes = maintenance I see. I thought you mean removing the tubes and cleaning the sockets every 6 months or something like that. I guess I've had great luck with tubes. Had my TT for nearly a decade now, with the same JJ tube I put in the following year. Rocker 30's are going on 3 and 6 years with the JJ kits I put in after purchasing them. Granted I don't play hard, or all that often, but every live guitar player I know barely knows what a tube is haha. It's not something anyone really worry's about. My worse experience with an amp was a Blues JR. Tubes were fine, guy had been running them for ages, but two of the pots had developed a crackling/cutting out issue. I had to solder new pots onto the board and it was good as new. This honestly could happen with any PCB amp.

Yes strings do wear out, but I usually keep a set on until it won't stay in tune, or the intonation goes crazy. I like the tone of both new (bright and punchy), and old strings (thick and mellow). Really not something that concerns me.

Changing tubes is an interesting subject to me. I couldn't believe the difference fresh tubes made in my YCV40WR, or my TT, but in my R30 and RV100, the difference less than subtle. I bought an IronHorse a few months back for my "clean" tone, and immediately put fresh tubes in it. I honestly couldn't tell the difference even though the amp was played hard for a number of years. Fresh tubes, while they may or may not sound "better", are IMO not worth the cost (unless one has failed). The re-tube kit for my RV100 alone was nearly $200CAD including shipping.

I find that the most noticeable change comes from changing strings. If I was to put new JJ set in one of my amps (which currently has JJ tubes), I doubt I would be able to hear the difference. I think there is also a camp out there who strongly believes that tubes don't sound good until they have been properly broken in and aged a little. If people didn't like old tubes, then I'm curious why NOS tubes from the 60's and 70's are being sold for a pretty penny. They must have something good about them.

Sorry back on topic. I think if you do want a SS head, you should spend a touch more and get the CR120 head. It sounds better, has more headroom, and will be more up-gradable "cab wise" in the future.

Edit: I just read that gibson article... Inspect the amp every few months for rattles? Um... Get a tech to inspect the resistors? I haven't done any maintenance on my amps, ever! I think I need to do some more research on this subject.

[OrangeBoy]

I have both (except I have a closed back Hughes and Kettner cab 1 X 12" fitted with a Vintage 30 to use with the OR15).

Both are excellent amps and I would be hard pressed to decide if I was only to keep one. The CR60C has the edge because of the awesome clean channel and fantastic distortion. Mind you, I had to give it plenty of playing time for the speaker to break in and get rid of "glitchiness" at max gain. The CR60 is really good for low volumes and still retain character and warmth (yes it is warm sounding for an SS amp). Overall it is more versatile than the OR15 and has a quieter effects loop, no noise in fact other than what is produced by pedals. In theory it should be more reliable than a tube amp but time will tell.

The OR15 has tone to die for but is less flexible than the CR60. I love it's clean tone but it's not as wide ranging as the CR60. It's more of a very good one trick pony. The effects loop does tend to be noisy but a tube change may fix this.

[lunchbox]

I had an OR15, but now have a CR120H with 2xPPC12's. I've never played through a CR60 though.

The OR15 sounded amazing at bedroom to mid level, but was drowned out and sackless in a loud band situation. It lacks low end overall and just didn't get loud or 'big' enough for my taste and jamming situation. So I sold it. I have to say that it would probably be the perfect recording amp for a single channel though.

I now have the CR120H. It's a very powerful, loud amp with a lot of low end on tap, a ton of gain, and tone that is very nearly tube like. Even as an old toob snob, it's so close to tube tone to me that it makes no difference. My band certainly couldn't tell the difference, nor would most people that I'll ever play in front of. And I'm actually kinda glad that I won't be having the urge to spend a bunch of $$$ to tube roll for the perfect tone. The CR120H is going to be like the Sunn Beta Lead in about 20 years; highly sought after and appreciated as an amazing amp.

I don't know what type of music you play, but here's a thread I started on CR120 samples in a hard rock band jam (my new band). Check it out if you like and tell me if you can really hear that it's a SS amp. The only pedals in my chain are a Boss tuner and Morley wah, so the tone is pure amp.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54799

[lunchbox]

oops

[KevinH]

Try the OR15 through a Laney IRT112.

[axeman1]

I bought a CR120 Head for gigs and a Micro Dark for home. I was not to pleased with the string articulation on the CR120 but I loved the reverb and the power.
I am running it though a 112 Emenence 150 watt Tonker and a boss GT100 with the four wire system. I sounds pretty good.
In an evening of experimentation I decided to try out the Micro Dark headphone out jack into the CR120 FX return on the CR120. Now the Micro Dark has a feature that you do not need to hook up a speaker to the amp if you are using the headphone out jack. I then hooked up to the FX loop with the four wire method to the Micro Dark. Now i have tone for days, i get the Micro Dark with tons of Head room the reverb from the CR120 and the Master volume of the CR120. I can dial in from clean with a little breakup to that British Classic rock tone.
I don't play metal but I am sure it is in there.

[pedecamp]

I think some people worry too much about tube maintenance, its really not a big deal and tubes are not as fragile as lead to believe, I've lost 1 preamp tube in 10 years and its easy to troubleshoot ad fix. Both amps are good in their own right, what the real decision is here is do you need a channel switcher or can you get along with a single channel amp, and do you need built in reverb. I can vouch for both amps, I've played them extensively and they both kick ass, its a win either way you choose, it all comes down to the features. Another consideration is the weight, a combo will be much heavier to move around than a head and cab.