Orange CR120H possible fault?
Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2019 2:09 pm
So I bought a second-hand CR120H last month, overall I'm very happy with it except for one characteristic which I'm not sure if it's a fault or just the nature of the beast.
TLDR: Is this normal for the CR120H? (sound clip below↓↓↓↓)
On the gain channel, there's this high-frequency artefact that can be heard underneath a note when it rings out, I'd describe it as a fizzle or a zap and it seems to bubble out as the note decays. I've tried a different head into the 2x12 cab I'm using and this noise wasn't present so its definitely not the cab.
I understand that a signature characteristic of Orange amps is the fizzle/fuzzy character of the distortion, however this sounds different, I would describe that classic Orange fizz as a pleasant sound that's organic, whereas this high freq noise sounds unpleasant and sterile to my ears; it sounds separate from the core tone as if it sits above it or alongside the decay instead of melding out organically like the distortion does (what I'm saying is it doesn't sound like it's part of the distortion).
This is my first solid-state amp so I am not sure if this high freq artefact is a natural characteristic of an op-amp based amp or not. The thing that makes me wonder if its a fault is that I owned a Timmy pedal a few years ago which is an op-amp type overdrive, this pedal had a faulty op-amp in it and the sound it made was very similar to what I'm hearing in my CR120H, an unpleasant high freq artefact in the note decay. Once I replaced the Op-amp chip in the Timmy this artefact disappeared, so I'm considering de-soldering the 4 Op-amps in the CR120H preamp, replacing them with sockets and swapping in a batch of new Op amps to see if that fixes it. I am confident enough with soldering to attempt this so it's not an issue, but I just wanted to check for opinions on this forum before I go to all that trouble.
To those of you on here who own or are familiar with the CR120, could you please tell me if this is a normal characteristic of the amp or not? Is this artefact just the nature of the beast or could it possibly be a bad chip? It's not something I've heard on any of the demos of the amp on YouTube, though I understand it might be too subtle to be heard through YouTube compression.
I've tried my best to record this potential fault which is most prominent when playing around the 12th fret, I'll include the recording below ↓↓↓↓
https://soundcloud.com/mitch-farris-467 ... ips-cr120h
I have the gain around 11 o'clock, vol around 3 and master volume at 9
Thanks in advance for your help!
TLDR: Is this normal for the CR120H? (sound clip below↓↓↓↓)
On the gain channel, there's this high-frequency artefact that can be heard underneath a note when it rings out, I'd describe it as a fizzle or a zap and it seems to bubble out as the note decays. I've tried a different head into the 2x12 cab I'm using and this noise wasn't present so its definitely not the cab.
I understand that a signature characteristic of Orange amps is the fizzle/fuzzy character of the distortion, however this sounds different, I would describe that classic Orange fizz as a pleasant sound that's organic, whereas this high freq noise sounds unpleasant and sterile to my ears; it sounds separate from the core tone as if it sits above it or alongside the decay instead of melding out organically like the distortion does (what I'm saying is it doesn't sound like it's part of the distortion).
This is my first solid-state amp so I am not sure if this high freq artefact is a natural characteristic of an op-amp based amp or not. The thing that makes me wonder if its a fault is that I owned a Timmy pedal a few years ago which is an op-amp type overdrive, this pedal had a faulty op-amp in it and the sound it made was very similar to what I'm hearing in my CR120H, an unpleasant high freq artefact in the note decay. Once I replaced the Op-amp chip in the Timmy this artefact disappeared, so I'm considering de-soldering the 4 Op-amps in the CR120H preamp, replacing them with sockets and swapping in a batch of new Op amps to see if that fixes it. I am confident enough with soldering to attempt this so it's not an issue, but I just wanted to check for opinions on this forum before I go to all that trouble.
To those of you on here who own or are familiar with the CR120, could you please tell me if this is a normal characteristic of the amp or not? Is this artefact just the nature of the beast or could it possibly be a bad chip? It's not something I've heard on any of the demos of the amp on YouTube, though I understand it might be too subtle to be heard through YouTube compression.
I've tried my best to record this potential fault which is most prominent when playing around the 12th fret, I'll include the recording below ↓↓↓↓
https://soundcloud.com/mitch-farris-467 ... ips-cr120h
I have the gain around 11 o'clock, vol around 3 and master volume at 9
Thanks in advance for your help!