Product Review: Orange Combo Amps

This product review is on a legendary British amp maker: Orange Amps. There a a few amps you can think of that have been around since the dawn of rock music, Marshall, Fender, Vox, etc.Orange is one of those amps too. If you have ever seen the "Paranoid" video from Black Sabbath you see Orange Amps. Jim Root of Slipknot\Stone Sour uses them. Geddy Lee from Rush endorses their bass amps. Ike and Tina Turner Band,James Brown Band,U2...the list of past and present users can go on and on. Locally in the CSRA Will Duckworth from Radar Cinema uses Orange.The Orange Amps I am going to be going over are the smaller combos, The Crush 20L, Crush 20LDX and the Crush 12L. They are solid state amps. Lets start with the Crush 20L. It retails at the store for $115, has a 6 inch speaker and is 20 watts. Its got clean and gain channels with a 1\8 inch aux in for mp3 or any other device you want to plug in and play with. For a low end little combo it gets decent gain and is perfect for the bedroom. The clean channel is really the best sounding on this amp(to me for sure). It is OK for distortion and is good enough for jammin to your favorite songs or coming up with good riffs. It is a good amp for the beginner. The tone isn't bad. It is better than a comparable Line 6. The next amp is the Crush 20 Ldx. It is suppose to be the same as the 20L but with the digital effects. To me the sound was way better on this amp. Even with the eq and every other knob set the same , this one just sounded better. The amp includes everything on the 20L plus reverb(room,hall,spring and chapel)reverb + delay, delay ( 100,175,300 and 650 m.s.) slow and fast settings for chorus, flanger and tremalo and a vibrato effect. It adds a fx mode and fx level knob. The effects are really easy to use and are very user friendly for this amp. It got alot more of the modern rock sound and the delays are great. Anyone who has played with the Line 6 combo's know when you change channels the volume can go way up and blow your ears out. That doesn't happen with this amp. I was teaching one day and heard a guy getting some very nice vintage John Fogerty tones out of this amp as well. Its a good sounding little amp. It retails for $159. Good price for this amp. The amp also has a built in tuner that is fairly easy to use too. The little brother to both these amps is the Crush 12 L. Its a little 12 watt version of the 20L. I like the sound of it better than the 20L. It retails for $99. While these little combos are just a small taste of the bigger high end amps they are at the top, to me, for beginner\practice amps in this price range. I can admit I have never been an Orange Amp player, I can admit that these are a bang for your buck and great for any up and comer to have to jam on. You can tell these amps are Orange's way of going after the Line 6 Spider series.They do a good job of taking them on. They will also satisfy an Orange Amp junkie who needs to have an Orange Amp that is portable. Get down to Big City Music and check them out. We also have the Orange Tiny Terror tube amps coming in soon. You might end up and Orange lover....