Was happy with Micro Dark until....

Orange Amps Technical Q&A's

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St8kout
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Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2018 1:49 am

Was happy with Micro Dark until....

Post by St8kout » Thu Jul 12, 2018 2:11 am

Just bought a Micro Dark and it sounded pretty good with a 12" Celestion Speaker, but then I plugged in my Sony MDR-7506 headphones and....what an utterly crappy sound. There is NO clean AT ALL. There's a crackling sound with every power cord. You can't hit the strings hard at all before it starts breaking up, and NOT in the good distortion kind of way, more like trying to play with a damaged/torn speaker.

When I unplugged the headphones to listen through the speaker, the crackling was there all along; I just couldn't hear it before. Did I get a unit with a bad tube or something? I could tell it was an open-box/returned/demo/whatever (VERY disappointed with guitarcenter.com about this). No owner's manual, cords were not neatly wound (unless Orange hires 5 year olds to package their products), power supply box bent and misshaped, no plastic prong protectors on the main power cord (as pictured in the online owner's manual), etc.

And what's with that electronic whine/howl when you hit the off switch? Not noticeable through the speaker but loud with headphones. And this is with the Volume all the way down.

St8kout
New Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2018 1:49 am

Re: Was happy with Micro Dark until....

Post by St8kout » Thu Jul 12, 2018 8:06 am

Ok, got an update:

Guitar Center redeemed themselves by offering an exchange. One of their local stores just got a Micro Dark in stock so they swapped mine for theirs, no muss, no fuss. Even has that 'new' smell when you open the box.

Sadly, I haven't had a chance to put it through its paces as I'm busy for now; just plugged it in to make sure it worked. Sounds ok. At least I know the 12AX7 is brand new.

I have noticed I never see any used Micro Darks for sale on our local Craigslist, nor in the Guitar Center store. What I DO see are used Micro Terrors everywhere. The store had a whole row of them behind the glass counter, and there's been one on Craigslist for months. Guess that's a good sign that nobody wants to give up their MDs.

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