or120

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dbsens03
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or120

Post by dbsens03 » Tue Jul 03, 2012 10:03 pm

how much gain do these have? how do they sound at low volume?
"Music is worthless unless it can make a complete stranger break down and cry."
"There are only two kinds of music; music that sounds good, and whatever you want to call that other stuff."

Randy Bass
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Re: or120

Post by Randy Bass » Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:18 pm

dbsens03 wrote:how much gain do these have?...
Some, not a ton though. It depends where you've got the Volume knob as well as how hard you hit the strings.
dbsens03 wrote:...how do they sound at low volume?
Loud.
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jojo68
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Re: or120

Post by jojo68 » Wed Jul 04, 2012 1:10 am

They are very clean until almost all the way up . ( at least mine is ) Then you have the most godly rock tone ever .

jojo68
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Re: or120

Post by jojo68 » Wed Jul 04, 2012 1:11 am

and yea , they are loud !!!

Gray
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Re: or120

Post by Gray » Wed Jul 04, 2012 1:47 am

It's a 120 watt amp, they don't really do low anything.

a.hun
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Re: or120

Post by a.hun » Wed Jul 04, 2012 8:43 am

dbsens03 wrote:how much gain do these have? how do they sound at low volume?
Not much and crap! Seriously! :shock:

By todays standards these are pretty low gain amps. At volume they'll get you enough overdrive to rock, but you can forget about searing high gain sustain - won't happen.

They only start to sound half decent once you have the volume control pretty far up. At low volumes they sound plain weedy. Trust me on this - I've had mine since 1980 and have played a few others too. These amps were designed when huge stage volumes were wanted and needed. At those volumes these amps are total monsters. But they don't even start to sound good until you get them well wound up.
jojo68 wrote:They are very clean until almost all the way up . ( at least mine is ) Then you have the most godly rock tone ever .
Exactly. They stay clean until the overdrive comes in - which it does very suddenly. By then things are VERY LOUD.

To be honest these amps are total dinosaurs these days. Far too loud for most stages and not good enough sounding at lower volumes. Not exactly the perfect flawless guitar amp...

But then they do have fantastic tones for bass, which is what I bought mine for. :lol:


Andy.
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In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

Belford
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Re: or120

Post by Belford » Wed Jul 04, 2012 12:21 pm

Yes they're quite useless when played at low volumes. Although I could get some nice jazz sounds from mine.

Up from that it depends on if it's OR120 / OD120 (Overdrive).. Yes Non-Master volume heads are really loud if you want overdrive.
But some people want that.. good for downtuned Doom & stoner music.

With master volume it's more manageable, I could get great tones after halfway. But I play loud Rock 'N' Roll anyway 8)
Still haven't found an OD120/Overdrive after years of searching! :o


Here's a good clip of a late 70's Overdrive Series II. Shows the MV/loudness/gain well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDuJVSdWy_g" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And a cranked 1972 OR120:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3gr5byWta8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; :evil:
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nlimbaugh
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Re: or120

Post by nlimbaugh » Wed Jul 04, 2012 4:07 pm

With my OR80 I use less efficient speakers (97dbs) not pointed near my ears and I don't find it to be too loud when I crank it. After about 3'oclock it seems to stop getting louder but still increases in stature so to speak... where it takes some finesse to control and gives great feedback. I still wear earplugs if I'm in the same room with it for any real length of time. I don't have much experience with amps at all, but anything else I've happened to come upon sounded kinda just not as good or sterile in comparison. Just my two cents. Oh, and when I say not too loud, the guy next door said he couldn't hear his TV, which he let me know very loudly. I'm more worried about the click track causing ear damage at this point... gotta crank it so loud to hear it over the drums. I've tried to remedy the situation with little success.

a.hun
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Re: or120

Post by a.hun » Wed Jul 04, 2012 5:28 pm

Belford wrote:Yes they're quite useless when played at low volumes. Although I could get some nice jazz sounds from mine.

Up from that it depends on if it's OR120 / OD120 (Overdrive).. Yes Non-Master volume heads are really loud if you want overdrive.
But some people want that.. good for downtuned Doom & stoner music.

With master volume it's more manageable, I could get great tones after halfway. But I play loud Rock 'N' Roll anyway 8)
Still haven't found an OD120/Overdrive after years of searching!
:o
I don't think the master volume on the Overdrive is much cop to be brutally honest. It was a very early MV design and not that effective IMO. Meaning that the amp still sounds fairly weak to me if the MV is backed off to much under say 8/10 or so. Yes you can shave a little volume off, but don't expect great guitar sounds at lower volumes even with an 'Overdrive'. With the MV fully open the amp is basically working just as a non MV model.

Sounds like I'm a bit negative about these amps, but I'm really not. Wouldn't have kept mine all these years if I didn't love it. They are astonishing sounding amps, but they do have their limitations. My THD Hotplate is a good friend of this amp and would make it quite gig-able if taken down -4 or -8db making it roughly a 50 or 20 watter.
nlimbaugh wrote:With my OR80 I use less efficient speakers (97dbs) not pointed near my ears and I don't find it to be too loud when I crank it.
Yes that makes a lot of sense. My problem on bass of course is different - pure lack of clean headroom. So perhaps ironically I always need to use the most efficient bass speakers I can with it. Devastatingly loud guitar amps but not so loud for bass... :lol:


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

dbsens03
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Re: or120

Post by dbsens03 » Wed Jul 04, 2012 5:47 pm

thanks guys
"Music is worthless unless it can make a complete stranger break down and cry."
"There are only two kinds of music; music that sounds good, and whatever you want to call that other stuff."

Bensen
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Re: or120

Post by Bensen » Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:37 am

When you say it doesn't sound good at low volume you are talking about overdrive sounds right? What about low volume cleans? I really like 100w tube-cleans from twins or my boogie. Any good cleans from this one? Anything comparable to Hiwatt clean? Good basic tone for pedals?

Also, whats the difference between the 70s and 90s models? I know, if it's older it has to sound better for most guitarists but then the 90s amps have newer Elkos...

Cheers
Ben

a.hun
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Re: or120

Post by a.hun » Mon Jul 09, 2012 11:51 am

Bensen wrote:When you say it doesn't sound good at low volume you are talking about overdrive sounds right? What about low volume cleans? I really like 100w tube-cleans from twins or my boogie. Any good cleans from this one? Anything comparable to Hiwatt clean? Good basic tone for pedals?

Also, whats the difference between the 70s and 90s models? I know, if it's older it has to sound better for most guitarists but then the 90s amps have newer Elkos...

Cheers
Ben
Hi Ben.

No I mean that the tones are weak and weedy at low volumes. Many big amps can sound really good at low volumes too. These just don't!

My Hiwatt still sounds bigger and fuller than any of my other amps at comparable (low or high) volumes, but the old ORs NEED to be working at volume before you get a nice full tone out of them, clean or dirty. :(

On 70's vs. 90's amps, though build and components were a little different the circuits were identical and both are great amps. Main weakness with '90s ones was inferior transformers. They sound fine but are much more likely to be damaged by impedance mismatching. Many have had their OTs replaced as a result.

Some good info from fiveightandten here:
http://forum.orangeamps.com/viewtopic.p ... 0&start=15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(Though specifically about the 'Overdrives' that whole thread is very good for general OR120 info.)


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

OrangePaul
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Re: or120

Post by OrangePaul » Mon Jul 09, 2012 7:57 pm

The early ORs make a good pedal platform in my experience and by the time you have them turned up to stage levels along side a drumkit and bass you're into heavenly territory.

Yeah you won't get Fender cleans but a fuller more natural tone IMO.
Dont expect much from the effects loop though as its a very early basic parallel design.

Not the best amp in the world for home practice use though... I do agree with Andy on that one.
Paul.

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