Anyone else with an AD140 ?? (HTC)

[Human Steve]

New guy here, got my first orange and found this forum!

Anyway, I need to know if mine is behaving normally. For a 140 watt amp, you would think this thing would be very loud (and it can be). But I have to turn it up to about 8-9 to get up to a good level, which is pretty loud as it is. It's just that I'm used to a 50 Watt JMP 2204 and that thing easily gets this loud on 4! I notice that once the Orange gets past 8-9 the volume increases quicker, therefor getting more than loud enough, but there goes any head room I hoped to have. It sounds nice though! I want to try this as a bass amp in a couple days so I'm hoping I can get enough clean headroom out of it. Otherwise I wouldn't care, I love cranking things

Are these designed this way? I could see that being the case as to get more saturation and still have a usable volume. It just kind of scares me that a 50 watt is really making it look like this thing is trying hard to keep up..

I do plan to re-tube it ASAP, but could old tubes cause that much of a dramatic difference? Do any of you have any experience with an AD140 that have the same story? is yours louder?

[cddsix]

I had a similar experience when I first got my Rockerverb 50Watt head. I was expecting to to blow out the windows like my Marshalls do, but I can take the master vol up to halfway and stand right in front of it. I could never do that with my JMP or JCM 50 W heads.

[cddsix]

I think the master volumes on Orange just have a different taper to them where they don't really pick up steam until they are over halfway, I have gotten to where I really like it, as it gives you a lot of room for incremental adjustments for low volume playing.

[bclaire]

Sounds about right. I used to think mine was weird but they all are like that.

Try it with two 4X12's though and you'll really get to experience the full potential of this amp....

[a.hun]

Hi Human Steve. Welcome!

Perfectly normal, according to the man who designed it!

The master volume pot taper on the AD30/140TC has a slow graduation! This is less noticable on the 30watt because it is cathode biased, adding compression, making it louder at low volumes! All of the power on a 140 comes in with the master between 9 and 10, making it very easy to control! However, this is probably not the case with other brands of amps and it seems that certain players are not used to this.The AD140 does actually make (depending on tubes) between 125 and 145 watts (clean) but the master must be on 10 to get this power! EL34`s run at around 450 vdc (plate and screen)in most amps of around 100watts, using four of them. However, the AD140 puts 550vdc on the plate and 380vdc on the screen (from separate transformer windings) giving more actual power! If the amp is good working order with a good healthy set of tubes, it should make the kind of power mentioned above. Anyway, the AD140 only runs till the end of this year! The model is being discontinued and replaced with something new! I can`t let on what thats gonna be as yet. all I`m gonna say is "its the loudest Orange on the planet"! Anyone out there who says this is mot loud enough needs to seek medical attention!

Best regards to all

Ade Emsley
Orange amplification

New power valves can make a big difference too if the old ones were pretty worn. Make sure that the amp's bias is checked and set correctly for the new valves. (Tech job unless you are totally familiar with high voltage valve circuitry!)


Andy.

[Human Steve]

Wow that sums it up perfectly!! thanks a million Andy! I almost had to seek medical attention! Thanks for the input guys, this thread was short and sweet!

[Randy Bass]

I think the logarithmic volume pots on most newer Oranges are a huge improvement over the traditional linear pots that have been used on many older amps. It's nice to have more gradual control over output volume instead of the stupid full output at 9:00 routine that so many older amps seem to do. The unfortunate side effect is that people assume that an amp must be "really loud" if jumps that quickly at lower dial settings, while an amp with a gradual taper must be inferior or faulty by comparison. The only useful output comparisons between different amps are those where the volume controls are on full.

[whybother182]

i actually made an exact post about this about 3 years ago when i bought my ad140 used... i was so use to other amps like my line6 bogner amp to get loud right away... but with this amp you need to get about 8 or 9 to start getting loud but it gets easier to control after that... i was freaking out thinking i was ripped off since it was used.. but that was not the case i just was not use to this amp also this amp did not have much gain so i found for me the orange ad140 and the xotic ep booster pedal were made for each other... i have both the dirty channel and booster set at 2 o'clock.... best tone i've ever heard... but you know everybody's quest for tone is different lol