Laney AOR Pro Tube 30

My amp was roughly made in the late 80s although I'm not certain when. I bought one as a shop demo. They had it and a Linebacker 80 watt and although the Linebacker was $100 less and the AOR was only 30 watts I saw the tubes and decided to go for it. I'd like to say the layout was user friendly but it isn't. The various volume, level and preamp controls are confusing. But get past those and the tone controls are blissfully simple. Pull out the boost and you're on your way. The presence is good and pokey and the reverb is useful if not spectacular. The switchable channels are ok but I found the FX loop especially useful. The DI jack is very trebly - a mic is a better bet for recording. A headphone jack would've been useful but I guess they thought that a 30w amp would be quiet enough without one. The speaker is a 12" Fane and the valves are 6V6GTs.

I play all sorts of music - everything from jazz & musical theatre to country, pop, blues, rock and metal. When I bought it I was about 19 and I've used it ALOT for basically all of the above styles. Firstly however the amp is LOUD! Thirty watts......and the rest?! My mother hates it. It tortured her until I moved out. Preamp 1 goes from clean and warm to icepick-in-your-ear KRRRANGG and it's fun as all get out to crank to 10. My main guitars are a Strat with a Kinman noiseless pickup, Yamaha RGX 612 with active pickups and a '56 Gibson 225T hollowbody with P90s. Any sort of bright single coil make Preamp 1 resemble an AC/DC style clang. The grunty active pickups pull even more from it. Preamp 2 muddies up really quick, especially with a lot of pickup drive. Think the solo on "Paranoid" and your there. Admittedly my amp needs a revalve but it was never really clear. Some people like this. It isn't really my speed. The other issue is that Preamp 2 is compressed and to be honest, a little quiet, so much so that it never really seemed to have parity with Preamp 1 which a bit of an issue if you want to be switching in between them and use 2 for the lead sound. OTOH it is really flexible in Preamp 1 with any array of overdrive pedals. Mostly I backed off the guitar volume for clean, wound it up full for overdrive and used an Ibanez Soundtank Tube Screamer as a booster for full gain. I coaxed all sorts of stuff out of it with the addition of delay, chorus, flanger, wah and tremolo. As far as Jazz and Country it was a case of backing off the gain and getting clean warm sound out of it which it did quite well. It was quite fun too cranking it right up and running it through delay in the loop for a sort of U2 or The Cure distorted echo which could be achieved if you sussed it out and didn't much care about your hearing. Did I mention it's loud? I'd forget trying to make this sound like Slayer or Slipknot though.

It has never broken down...never. It was noisy at times but regular services when it got a lot of use made it great.

Never dealt with them.....never needed to.

I've been playing 20 years this year and this amp has to stand as my most reliable piece of gear. Snobby Fender owners with HotRods have been blown away by it more than once and it has been dragged everywhere. I won't say that a more straight forward preamp section wouldn't have been better but it is a nice little thing. The only real downside is the weight. I've lost count of how many times I almost dislocated my arm pulling it up stairs and into cars. If you can't handle that it may not be the amp for you. But as far useful, reliable and flexible this fits the bill. I haven't used to as much recently but then I haven't played much recently and when I have I needed a tad more volume. For the money it is without doubt the best investment I ever made.

Mid 80's 30Watt, 1x12 combo with a 12AX7 preamp stage(not far off a hot-rodded marshall JCM800 preamp) and 6v6 power stage, excellent EQ section with pull-boost on all knobs, AND a presence control... AND a decent spring reverb!

There is some confusion over the Laney Pro Tube / AOR / Series II models, and whether they're single or 2-channel amps. I worked in one of the few shops in CA that imported Laneys in the 80s, and tried them all... so here's the low-down (if I remember correctly!):

There were amp types - the basic Pro Tube line, which had a single channel with two (cascading) preamp stages, and 1x gain & 1x vol knobs.... and the AOR series, which had an extra, switchable gain stage (overall, 2xgain and 2xvol knobs). Both types had high and low input jacks - the low one fed the signal directly to the final preamp stage for a totally clean sound. Unfortunatly, because of the way the jacks were wired, you can't use an external A/B footswitch to switch between the low/high (totally clean/dirty)...although it's a fairly simple mod.

So, the basic Pro Tube series is really a single-channel amp - very much like a JCM800 in design, and sound, although with more gain and better EQ.

The PRO Tube AOR series is also really a single-channel amp, but with a foot-switchable boost. More of a rhythm/lead amp than a clean/dirty amp. The extra gain section seems voiced for soloing (lots of gain, and brighter). However, by running the preamp knobs lower, you CAN use it as a clean/dirty amp, and this works especially well if you switch to single coils for the clean sounds.

The main difference I remember about the Series II amps is that they used to come back for warranty repair occasionally, which the origional series didn't.... I think they had smaller transformers in, and slightly different circuitry. I can't remember if Series II included both Pro Tube and Pro Tube AOR models (I only remember selling the latter).

A truly EXCELLENT amp. So much better than so many Marshalls. Sounds suprisingly british for a 6L6 amp. Think anything between AC/DC and Metallica. And very loud - EASILY enough to gig small clubs with.

Hint: use it as a rhythm / lead amp. The rhythm sound is excellent, and you can get a suprising amount of 'chunk' from the small cab. Lead sound is high-gain / bright 80's style, and very 'fluid'.

When used with an external cab (must be 8ohm) it sounds even better. Also, it sounds good at club volume levels - I've heard some marshalls (eg JCM800 single-channel versions) that have a sound to die for... but you have to turn them up stupidly loud.

Very reliable. Series II amps less so.

Laney have good customer support - fairly small company. You can even speak to the guy who designs the amps!

If you want a ballsy, british sounding, small combo that sounds great, and you don't mind the lack of a totally seperate clean channel with its own EQ etc, then buy one. They're cheap, but won't be for long.... If you do need a clean channel, get a Laney LC50, although the dirty sound is a little less ballsy.

This amp is an early 90's model. The amp is basically a one channel tube amp (30 watts) with a boost. Although at lower volumes you can get a very nice clean from it. The amp features 2 preamp knobs, a preamp level, master volume, 3 band eq with boosts, presence and reverb. The boost and reverb are footswitchable.

This guitar is made for rock. The single channel provides a very nice low overdrive sound then with the boost, a nice distorted sound. The amp gets the best tone when the equalizer boosts are engaged. The sounds becomes much more full and saturated. Without the boosts the amp is very thin sounding. The amp is loud enough to be played with a band for practice and possibly a small gig. But will probably need to be mic'd for a larger gig. With enough tweaking this amp has excellent tone.

I've had the amp for 1 year. No breakdowns yet. I did have to bring it in to have the tubes checked because the tone coming out was not right at higher volumes. That was easily fixed by cleaning the tube contacts.

I've been playing guitar for 8 years. I think this is a great practice/small gig amp. Very nice thick, full overdrive. It can suit many styles as long as you use distortion. If you're looking for something clean, look somewhere else. If this were lost or stolen I would look around for another tube combo. I bought this mainly on the price and tone, but I'm sure you could find a better tone from a different amp. But in terms of price to tone, this can't be beat.

There are like 5 review categories which are probably all the same amp, but I'm not totally sure this is the right one... This is an '87 Laney Pro-Tube AOR Series (advanced overdrive response) which is almost as old as me, with preamp 1 volume (boost) preamp 2 volume, preamp 1 level, master, treble (boost), middle (boost), bass (boost), presence, and reverb. I have taken this thing apart many times, and it has a real spring reverb tank under the speaker... I actually like it too... a lot of features...

THIS IS THE SOUND I'VE ALWAYS WANTED! Just like someone else said, it's the holy grail amp! It's truly the best I've ever heard, better than any new Marshall stuff... I bought this thing on ebay, not really knowing what I was getting into, I just wanted a REAL amp... but it has blown me away. I had to do some restorations, but that was expected... I put in new tubes, sovteks I believe, because the retard who had it before me had never changed the tubes in its long long life... had it rebiased and fixed, as a few things were shorted... and then I stuck a vintage 30 in it. It sounded a little too dark at first because the parts were old, but now it SHREDS! It's actually way too loud, espescially for a dorm... 30 tube watts = like 150 solid state watts... I set the fucking master on 0 and it still goes through the walls. One time I took it outside in my friend's front yard (he's one of those goofy black metal guys) to see how loud I could turn it up. I got to 5 and he started complaining that it was hurting his ears! Barky, Biting, Crunchy heavy metal leads, baby! So I have this set up like this... though most anything sounds fine... All preamps on 10, master on 0, all EQ on 10, with treble boosted, presence almost all the way up, reverb on 2. LET RIP! I play a Gibson SG Voodoo through a DOD compressor, 250 overdrive, and EQ (to add bass for occassional rhythm work). My only real complaint is that you can't turn down the mids for thrash sounds, it just sounds "farty". Oh, one tip, if you turn down the preamp 1 level, you can get Mesa Boogie tones... although I hate Mesa. But this amp sounds good on any setting. My other complaint is that the transister kept rattling inside the chasis and projecting through the speaker and the reverb (took me forever to find out what it was...), so I stuck some ticky-tac underneath it to keep the metal from rattling on metal. Hardly ideal, but it seemed to work. Added wheels, because this thing will break your god damn back-- no joke. The amp is a little picky about what effects you put into it, and I'm not sure the effects loop works on this one. The preamp 1 boost also makes some hissing noises, hence my buying an overdrive pedal.

Just like anything, if you take care of it, it will take care of you. It's already 18 years old and made in old England, I would be very suprised if it just stopped working. I think it's hand-wired, too.

Actually not too bad, although the guy who emails be back is this grumpy old British dude.

I got this thing for a steal. I love tinkering with shit, and it has kept me busy, entertained, and finally, it's given me what I wanted in an amp. I've really progressed musically through this thing. I play blues to classic rock to old school heavy metal, and I've been playing lead guitar over 4 years (not too long I guess, but I've been in music most of my life. I learn fast and haven't met anyone who can out-shred me!) If this were stolen, I would cry, I really would. I've played tons of new Marshalls and Mesas, but nothing compares. Especially for under 400. I like the new all-tube Crate amps (without the FX) and suprisingly like those a lot. But this is far superior, and more customizable. I've spent less on this with mods and all than I would buying one of those new. Marshall prices... don't get me started. LANEY IS THE POOR MAN'S MARSHALL... WITH BALLS! Sorry for the long review, I leave very long reviews when I have lots to say.

This amp is from the 80's, I think, and still in decent shape with the original Fane 12". I usually stick with my old Super Reverb, but I also wanted to pick up something British sounding and relatively low power and portable. This fills the bill, although the tube configuration is uncommon for British amps. Doesn't matter though, it sounds pretty much like a good JCM 800 or a Mk II (though with more available gain if desired). It has an active front end that lets you dial in another AX7 for gobs of gain, and you can footswitch in some boost and reverb. There is an effects loop, though I never use these. The reverb (which I understand is run via a solid state circuit) is lame, perhaps having sustained some damage. I might bring it to the attention of a good IC tech, but not a big priority right now. There are a couple more ICs in the thing but all else seems to function reasonably well.

I'm still experimenting, but it does its thing pretty well with whatever guitar I use. I just tried a Gibson Hawk with a Duncan Phat Cat p90 and it was very nice. Another Hawk has 490s, and that's fine too, as are the teles. I play a lot of vintage stuff like old Faces and Stones, and it seems to do that very well if you use an appropriate amount of gain. It also does Iommi (though I don't).
It is not particularly noisy.
For the sound of old Marshalls, plug into the low input and turn everything all the way up. You'll only get about 20 watts, but you will love every one of them. Great for late sixties Stones and Faces, T Rex, Who, etc.
I am not a distortion expert, though as I mentioned, one type of distortion reminds me of Iommi on the Sabs Reunion Live CD, or it can sound like late 70's or 80's Marshalls, or it can also dish up Gary Moore-ish. Plenty of brutality, though (I am guessing here) I think it falls short of death thrash transistor or crippled rectifrier.
Finally, the closed back feature is nice, though the old Fane has seen better days. I plugged it into an open back cab with a new Celestion G12H-80 and that helped. I would tend to believe other reviewers who heard improvements with a V30, and I also suspect that it will be colossol through a closed back 4-12 box (though it must have an 8 ohm load).

I have not owned it long enough to common, but hey, it has survived at least 15 years, I would guess, and that says something.

Me not know.

Been playing 35 years, had many amps foreign and domestic, mild to wild. Mostly its me, guitar, cord, and amp, doing our humble best to cop classic tones. If I had to replace it, I think it would be hard to find something as authentically British and British sounding in the size, portability, and cost range.

I am more accustomed to Fender amps and lower levels of distortion, and I was going to buy a Fender Blues Junior, but this cost half as much, and though a different animal in many ways, I was happy to take it home. It is a lot of fun to screw around with and have cool British tones from 1970 through 1990 jump out at you. I've had a few Marshalls over the years, and we never got along that well. This little guy is somehow friendlier and more ferocious, at least for me.

Like other reviewers, I wish it had a standby switch, a reverb that actually worked (perhaps a design issue, maybe just a broken thing-a-ma-jig). I also wish it had an impedence selector.

Its my only amp, had it for 15 years, and does all I want it for, soft clean or dirty, loud clean or dirty. Features are as previous reviews. Marshall channel/reverb switch works as a replacement. Reverb sounds ok to my ears, as long as its less than 12 0'clock...
Recently re-valved with EH pre and power amps. Should have done it ages ago, doesn't pop now! Also fitted celestion G12-H inplace of stock fane...oh my god, what a noise! Fatter, warmer, and clearer if its possible.

Fender am delux sss strat (sex on a stick!), big muff, maxon comp, DD-20, MXR phaser. Without effects it plays warm...its a word I like, but it does. Sometimes it gets so right, a tone to die for. Not sure why it isn't always like that, but its never less than good. A lot of flexibility with varying pre and power outputs, nice with power up high and pre less than mid. Plays loud too (sorry Edna and Cecil, the neighbours!). Tone controls can be a bit too much, and pull boost can drown the character, but using the tone and pickup controls on the guitar produce many many different sounds, all juicy.

Hasn't failed me yet. Will change the tubes more often.

Not tried to contact them. Would have liked to find a replacement channel select footswitch on their website, or at least reference to it, but proved easy to replace anyway.

I rush home from work to turn this on, at the missus' expense (do I need help?). I can dial in all sorts of different combinations of the 4 gain/volume pots and invariably get a sound that has me playing for ages, even though I want to try something else. The boost/overdrive set up works well, and is is so easy to get a clean singing tone that morphs to a chunky OD at the press of a button. I didnt realsise how much I enjoyed this amp until I changed the tubes, but that coupled with the celestion is a wow. I wont be replacing it, tried a hot rod delux and it just didnt come close, all bright and jangly compared to this amps chocolate...

Transformer has sticker on it dated 1984. Very versatile amp from loud clean to loud distortion. Great for country, blues, or heavy metal. 4 ECC83's, 2 6L6WGB's. Bought it used with 6L6WGB's but I think they came stock with 6V6's.

High and Low Inputs. Doesn't channel switch but you can footswitch between Pre-Amp boost setting. So you can make one setting clean and one super over the top gained out. You use the Pre-Amp Level 1 knob to adjust the volume between boosted and not boosted. Very easy and works well.

Treble, Mid, and Bass knobs pull out for boost. I like to boost the mids sometimes. But you can do the opposite for REALLY sccoped mids.

Presence, moderately useful. Reverb which is pretty weak. Just adds a little feel and a slight depth, not Fender surf. I never bother with it.

On back there is 8ohm Speaker jack, DI jack, and effects loop. I never use the effects loop.

Mine has a Celestion G-12M-65 in it that looks stock. It's a front loaded cab.

I've used Danelectro's with lipstick single coils with it and Gibson Explorer with ceramic humbuckers. This amp sounds just like a Fender Hot Rod DeVille clean. You can plug into the High input and crank the Master Volume and adjust the Pre-Amp one to taste for a really hot mostly clean country sound. You can pull out the Pre-Amp boost and play with humbuckers and sound meaner than Tony Iommi with better string dynamics and harmonics. Almost in Boogie combo land but not quite the bounce and sag or the rounded bass clarity. You know, gobs of pre-amp gain into 6L6's. Some people don't like Boogie style pre-amp gain but this amp makes it sound good. Sounds like a modded Master Volume Marshall but warmer and a bit clearer.

You can play with the EQ boost knobs for hours getting all kinds of tones. Some good. Some not so good.

It can be noisy with the gain maxed out. But not annoying in a live situation. Doesn't need a noise gate.

Great sounding amp. Sounds even better when you put in EH12AX7's in the first three pre-amp slots and a EH12AU7 in the slot next to the power tubes(It's an old Marshall trick). It's pretty edgy sounding with the ECC83's. The set-up I just mentioned will smooths it out a lot.

Closed back so it projects really well or you can take the back off and it fills the room but the bass can get slightly muddy at full gain. I've used this amp unmiked for small to medium sized gigs and got over our loud drummer with ease.

The pre-amp tubes can get loose sometimes after a car ride. I just push them in a little and problem fixed. Only problem in 4 years. Super heavy duty construction. It weighs a lot more than it looks like it should. A lot more. Wire speaker grill. Keeps the drunkards from kicking your speaker.

Never dealt with them.

Been playing 15 years. Owned Marshalls, Fenders, and others. This is a really under valued amp. Sounds great live with plenty of volume to spare from clean to balls to the wall distortion. Switches from a hot Fendery sound to hot rodded Marshall sound with ease. Great for Heavy Metal or Country gigs. Maybe blues. Sounded great for slide after I changed the preamp tubes. Bass is not clear enough for 7 string drop tuning but hey it's a 1x12 combo.

However, it's a heavy little bugger. It's not much bigger than the 12" speaker but it weighs around 45lbs. Easier to carry around than a Fender but it is deceptively heavy. So I don't take it out to gigs much anymore.

Made in the mid 80's 30 watts of power through 2 6V6 tubes. One 12" Fane speaker. Boogie style cascading gain preamp. Pull boosts on the tone controls. No actual channel switching.....it justs brings an extra gain stage (or two) to the circuit. It also has reverb...kinda odd sounding. Just keep the reverb knob on zero....ick. No standby switch...wonder why?

I use it with Fenders, Ibanez's and Gibsons. I play rock, R&B, soul and fusion styles. For the price they sound fantastic. They are a little hissy and noisy at real high gain settings but the sound always seems to cut through a band mix very easily with minimal tweaking. It is voiced very similar to a Marshall.

Mine looks (and sounds) like it might use a cap job and the tube sockets have a little carbon buildup in some of the pin holes. Not too bad for a 15 year old amp. With a older tube amp, anything can happen. At the very least I'll bring a spare set of tubes to a gig.

This model has been out of production since around 1990.

I purchased one of these used in the mid 80's playing small clubs and bars and decided to find another. I like them because the volume is very managable and you can still get ripping tones from them. Need more volume? just throw a mic on it and you're ready to roll. I have a huge rack rig with a mesa triaxis/2:90 and a Bogner Ecstacy half stack and they are much too big for most of the gigs I do. The Laney does a respectable job at being a good sounding amp without breaking the bank.

high and low sensitivity inputs, master volume, pull boost eq, presence, reverb, fx loop. The controls are kind of confusing because there are just preamp 1 volume, preamp 2 volume, preamp 1 level, and master volume to work with while trying to get a high gain tone out of it. i put a celestion vintage 30 in it and it sounds killer!

Im using a Yamaha Pacifica straight into the high sensitiviy input and i get get a pretty good marshall tone out of it. I wish the tubes were different namely 6L6's or EL-34's but at the price who can beat it? its not especially noisy unless its cranked and youre 2 feet away from it. all this crazy feedback comes from it. the distortion is your typical high gain distortion.

i have not ever had to replace anything as i just got it but, it looks like its built like a rock. i would definatly gig without a backup. i would bring extra tubes though.

never had to deal with them

This amp is great if youre on a low budget and need an amp thats all tube. I've compared it with marshalls that are 2x the price and this one beats it bar none.

2 channel, reverb, high gain amplifier. 1 x 12 speaker, master volume, fx loop, individual preamp tube controls, low-mid-high eq's with pull boosts(active eq) features. Very versatile setup.

Here's where this amp really shines. I can dial up most any tone I want with this baby, from clean & shimmery, to SRV blues, to high gain heavy metal. This is what I look for in amps. Pedals are great but if I can get the tones I'm looking for without weakening my signal through pedals I'm in heaven. This amp delivers the goods. I'm really surprised they are so cheap on the market, hell even the 50 & 100 watt heads only get about $200-$250 on the used market. That's insane! I may snatch up a 50 watt head one of these days, they are good value. I replaced the original Fane speaker(looks just like a celestion G12) with a Celestion V30, and I almost crapped my pants when I plugged in my humbucker guitar. Oh man! I love V30 speakers, for it really tightened up the bass and the highs are really dynamic. This amp responds well to pick attack, palm muting, and there's sustain for days. I love it. Reverb has a very wide range, and it's my understanding that only the Pro Tube combos come with reverb(why?). This amp uses 4 12AX7 preamp tubes and 2 6V6 output tubes, all chassis mounted. If you think 6V6 tubes cant get loud you are mistaken, I can shake the windows in my house with this baby. Looking at the back of the amp, there's a metal grill and the tube area is open for heat disappation, the cab part is closed back which adds to the punch and bass output of this little monster. It almost has the bass of my sealed 2x12 custom made hardwood cab.

No probs at this point. But I've only had it for a short time.

My only beef with this amp is the lack of a standby switch. I really bugs me when I turn the amp off and hear the popping and crackling of tubes being jarred electrically. I may install a standby switch myself, just to preserve my tubes.