PRODUCT REVIEW
ORANGE
TH30
For England’s Orange Amplification, lower-wattage amps have become a major pedestal of their recent success and resurgence.
While the company founded its reputation
in the late ’60s and early to mid ’70s with
bold, brash-looking high-wattage monsters
and big cabinets that spruced up the stage
for everyone from Fleetwood Mac to Led
Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and James Brown,
the company’s recent renaissance has been
driven by the success of the AD30, Rocker
30, and especially the wildly popular Tiny
Terror. The company’s recent release of the
new EL84-driven TH30 head (also available
as a combo) shows that they’re eager to
build on success in this moderate-power
category, and the TH30 turns out to be one
the company’s most versatile and usable
amps to date.
The simple control layouts of Orange
amplifiers have always been a design
strength. In the case of the TH30, that
philosophy remains very much intact. Each
of the amp’s two channels—which you can
select using a front-panel toggle—is con-
trolled by just three knobs, which means
you can dial in both clean and dirty sounds
with very little fuss. The Clean channel fea-
tures a Volume knob and Bass and Treble
EQ controls, while the Dirty channel fea-
tures Gain, Volume, and Shape knobs.
The amp’s overall wattage can be cut from
the maximum of 30 watts to 15 watts,
using the 3-way standby switch on the
front panel. And if you’re in the mood for
some low-wattage, greasy-amp goodness,
another rear-panel switch lets you knock
the wattage down to a tiny seven watts
by bypassing two of the four power tubes.
Rounding out the modern options are
a series effects loop and a jack for an
optional channel footswitch.
Thunder and Lightning,
Very Frightening!
Even though TH30 can summon clas-
sic Orange voices with ease, it has a
personality—or rather personalities—all its
own. And I set about exploring them with
by routing the head through Orange PPC
4x12 and PPC 4x10 cabinets and plugging
in a 1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom with Tom
Anderson pickups. Using different combina-
tions of tone settings and the full- and half-
power options, I was able to achieve some
really unique, usable tones in each channel.
The TH30’s Dirty channel is classic
Orange, through and through. There’s
no shortage of gain on tap, and the
amp retains the quintessentially Orange
characteristic of a bright top end with
a rounded, expansive low-end foundation. The TH30 also barks with a grinding
midrange that cuts well, even when the
shape control is dialed to a more scooped
setting. And it adds a lot of range to the
amp’s voice. I can’t think of too many
amps with an EL84 power section that
kick out vintage and modern stoner metal
tones with equal aplomb, but the TH30 is
certainly one of them.
