Laney AOR Pro Tube Lead Head

100 watt guitar amp with a lot of gain and sonic flexibility.
Pre-amp section: four 12x7 tubes.
Power tubes: four el34.
EQ controls: presence, bass(w/boost), mid(w/boost), treble(w/boost)
2 preamp and 1 master volumes (one of preamps w/boost).
Inputs: hi and low impendance.
Effect loop.
Two outs for speakers.
Variable, 4,8,16 Ohm, output resistance.
Variable voltage power supply (120, 220Volts).
Well shielded.
Power and standby switches.

Very heavy (1 tonn).
User interface is not intuitive. I don't know what level of toxication a man should have to design such mess; or it might as well be a woman (no offence, please, I love women because they percieve things differt). But he/she got the sound right... Suggestion: to get it faster, drink more before starting. Reduce the doze after some progress starts.
On stage, it would be difficult, if possible, to switch between sounds and think of music at the same time. But would be great if just used for single sound. Power is enough for any occasion.

Currently I play from ROCK to HARD ROCK, 90% instrumental stuff in small HOME PROJECT STUDIO. The cab is Legacy 2X12 with Vintage 30, Open back is better for my taste, but closed back is good too. DiMarziio pickups that I use: Breed (neck, bridge), Evolution(neck, bridge), HS-2, C-2). Effects: TC Electronic M300.

CLEAN SOUND is awesome
DIRTY SOUNDS from light overdrive to heavy distortion without any stomp boxes
EFFECTS LOOP does not adds noise

So the sound is all this amp has. I own this amp for about a year and found myself satisfied with the sound palette. Have nothing else to say. So this section is 10 to me. Please consider that I tried only a few amps before, Carvin Legacy (used to be my dream, played in stores), Marshall JCM2000 (very Marshall sound, played in stores), Carvin BelAir combo (own it for years), Mesa Boogie combo with el84 tubes (played a few times at friends house).

One of pull/push switches needs to be replaced. Vinyl cover has no cosmetic value anymore. Otherwise, it works. It is too old to speak of reliability.

E-mailed them asking for a manual. No manual exists anylonger in their archieves, but the tech was very helpfull and provided me with very detailed info for each control and function of the amp. He responded withing 24 hours for each of my 4 inquiries.

Overall, it is a perfect solution for a married guitar player with limited (if any) budget such I am. I used to dream of Legacy Head before, and my wife was ready for at least $700 expence. You won't believe how she likes this amp...
This amp will never be stolen, it weights 1 tonn.
The heat it produces is enough to keep you warm in winter garage.
It is ugly, scratches and dents are all around.
It does not attract children to mess with it; my two sons probably think it is another toolbox.
Combination of Great Sounds and Low Price is the only reason I keep it.
I think I'll keep it as long as I(it) live(s), then one of us will hunt for a substitution. In case I stay longer, I will look for the same or similar.

I guess bet.85 and 87. I play a 67 Hagstrom 12 string through it, and it sounds lovely, and when I hit my distortion pedal, it's blistering. I mean it. It has 2 chanels, a Low and High. It has a headphone jack. It also has dials on the back that let you dial in the z to meet your speakers needs, same thing with the wall jack incase your touring in Europe. the way the channels are configured, you can dial in a good number of sounds. It's a pro amp in my book. The push pull pots on the eq section are nice, when you pull out the trebble pot with a 12 string, look out. Roger McQuinn would blush. Nice.

Like I said a hagstrom 12, and like I didn't yet say, a fender strat. 62 reissue. They both rip through this head. My style is indi rock. It suits me just fine. It's a heavy head, for real, it weighs like 90lbs or something, so it's a bitch for gigs.

when I first purchased it, the "high" channel was broken, $50 and it was fixed. I can depend on it now. I use it for gigs without a back up.

I love this amp. For an indi rocker, it's not the first thing you think of to be sure, it's a hair metal amp. but when I was looking at prices, and remembered how loud this amp was, I figured it was right for me. the sounds are great. the distortion, and the clean. People say that they don't like the clean, and while it's not like a twin or an ac30 clean wise, it's still pretty nice. but for the price...?

This review is gonna be pretty slim seeing as how I only owned it for a month. I ended up selling it to pay for a Laney VC50, but anyway...

This is the 50 watt version, 2 EL34s, 4 12ax7s, no reverb. It only has one channel with a footswitchable boost, so this amp can switch from clean to classic rock distortion or from classic rock distortion to metal/punk distortion. Thats about it, don't expect this to be an amp used as a clean amp because its not. This is a straight up "balls to the wall" distortion amp designed for the hair metal and punk bands of the mid 80s. From what i understand, this amp is the predecesor of Laney's GH series amps. I'll give it a "7" for features due to the price.

I don't really know what kind of condition the pre-amp tubes where in but the power tubes where brand new. This could account for the clean not being very good. The distortion is excellent, bass out the ass and can get very bright if you want. Laney's are known for their brights, if you want something dark go with Peavey or Marshall.

I checked the inside, all the soldering joints are nice and tight. Very well made amp. This is a very reliable amp and sounds great to boot.

Does not apply.

Been playing for about 6 years. I wouldn't suggest this amp to anyone that demands versatility. But if what you're after is something cheap and simple to bang out power chords in a punk, death or hair band, this might be your amp.

AOR Lead Tube head has 2 footswitchable channels; this one is a 100 W beast, made in about the mid-late 80's.Suits my style of classic rock and big hair metal well. There is an effects loop, several speaker jacks,4 EL 34 tubes, and 4 ecc 83 pre tubes. No reverb, though,wish it had it.

I use a Les Paul Deluxe, Fender Strat, both with stock pickups, and an Epiphone Explorer with a Dimarzio Tone Zone, and an Air Norton, so I have a range of outputs to play.This amp doesn't clean up well with the Explorer, but with the lower output Les Paul and Strat it sounds great for clean channel stuff. The Explorer just pushes the gain that much more, making the amp really sing with the distorted stuff.

Seems very reliable. Amp came from a guy in Hawaii to Ohio,via ebay; has held up well for the last 15-20 years. Does not look anywhere near that old.I would not hesitate to play out with this thing at all. It's a typical head used by Ratt and Ace Frehley, I think, so my small scale stuff doesn't scare me at all with it.

Laney customer support was quick and friendly; I used e-mail to communicate w/them. Roger there is great, very helpful. I had the amp thoroughly checked, and retubed. Service guy said it was in A1 condition.

Been playing 25 years, finally made the jump from solid state (shaky state is more like it!!) to tube amp, will never go back. I coupled this amp to a 4-12 Celestion cab I built myself, and am blown away! Every bit as hot as Marshall, nowhere near the $$$ Would definitely recommend, and would buy again. Just wish it had reverb.

Made in England in 1985. One channel with a switchable lead boost, has added gain and volume for it. I don't think it really added all that much personally, but it was enough. Had 2 EL34 Power Tubes and 4 12AX7 Preamp tubes. Has the normal treble, mid, bass, master, and preamp sections). Pretty much a no-nonsense tube amplifier designed for rock. There are pull boosts for the 3 EQ's but they are not footswitchable, although they do add to the sound considerably when used.

I played many guitars out of it, a Fender Stratocaster with hotrails pickup, an Epiphone Les Paul Standard, and a Gibson Les Paul Standard. Obiously the higher quality guitar you use the better the sound, be careful when you read reviews and they play their gear out of a squire or a gibson, it makes a difference trust me. This particular head was always played out of the matching cab that came with it. After 20 years it had lost some bass response, but was still a solid cab. The sound was very much one-sided, but it is very good at what it does. It has a ton of distortion for rock, and it is very good. It can be tuned down for just rock, or turned up with a gain setting of 20 (including the boost) for the diehard metal and distortion fans. The Eq is responsive, but not a ton, don't rely on it to give you drastic changes in tone. Don't buy this amp if you want a clean sound, it doens't have a real good one. However, for the price, you cannot find a better dirty sound, period. That is a fact. Sounds just like, and maybe even better, then a marshall JCM800 and 900 dirty channel, for half the cost on ebay these days.

Has lasted 20 yeas, although I didn't own it the whole time, and obviously is still around. It took quite a beating while I owned it, and it always fired up for me.

Never dealt with laney

Been playing for a few years. This was the first half stack I purchased, 400 for the head and cab when I wanted to join a band, and it was the best bang for the buck that I ever got. When I sold it I bought a Mesa DC-5 head (Another excellent head), and a marshall 1960 lead cab. I still own those, as well as two epiphone les paul standards, a modified cort stratocaster, and a Fender Tom Delonge Stratocaster. I play melodic rock with emo/punk/hardcore influences, and the only thing that made me sell it was I needed a two channel amplifier. If you only desire a one channel amp for an amazing dirty sound and are on a budget though, look here. For the price, it cannot be beat.

This is a mid or early eighties Laney AOR Pro Tub Leab amp. 50 Watts all tube. Serial no. 1070. All tolex head, looks a lot like a Marshall JCM head but wider. Two channels, but not switchable, no reverb. Looks very verstaile. Two speaker outputs and an adjustable speaker output load 4-8 or 16 Ohm, which I think is a very good feature when you use different cabs like I do. I wish it had reverb, though.

I used it with a Jazzmaster so far equiped with SD antuiqitys. Sounded good on the clean side. just good flat clean. I added some reverb from my Electro Harmonics holy grail and instantly fell for it. Now we are talkin reverb on this head....
I have it now coupled on a late 60ties Marshall 4x10 cab and it sounds so sweet....
But it looks like it has a brutal distortion as well, simelar to the Marshall JCM series. But I like the cleaness of this amp, it suprised me.

Can't speak about reliability, but given the serial of this amp, it must be at least 15 years old and still sounding nice. The head looks very beaten and could use a cleanup, but hey...it works and delivers....

I got it on loan, so it's not my concern at the moment.

I have been playing for about 12 years now, had many amps. I used to have a Laney linebacker 60 combo once, which I totally disliked, but this head seams very different, I like the way it sounds...I'm a vintage Fender amp guy now, but this 80ties Brit head has my likings.
Well I will be using it for rehearsal now until my Fender is fixed, it will serve it's purpose. If the price is right, I might perhaps buy it as backup.

It was made around the mid-eighties i think. 50 watts all tube. No channel switching. (sorry, no way to get around this one kids.) Footswitchable preamp boost, push/pull eq controls for mid, treble, bass, and preamp level 1. Has controls for preamp 1 volume and preamp 2 level, and presence (high frequency.). Ohm selector, voltage selector, and dual speaker jacks.

I like to run my les paul fitted with quad rail pickups straight into the amp. the clean sounds are good and usable but nothing shocking here. the drive is where this amp scores points. Very high gain, nice bottom end, shrieking highs, pushy mids. If you like to play mid-driven hardcore, this is the amp for you. I play in a punk band and could not ask for more. The only thing i wish it had really is a good reverb device. I normally use it just to full in the sound but the drive is so full it is not very necessary. The push/pull eq was a fantastic idea. if you pull the bass watch out if you are inside. Definetly will knock pictures off the wall. Im personally not a mid kind of guy so i dont use the mid boost. The power you get from the amp is phenominal. I dont see the need for a 100 watt head because the 50 has got everything covered until amps start getting miked. The lack of channel switching is kind of a bummer, but it works with alien drive boxes really well, better than some amps.(my favorite box is the ds-1.) The amp has sustain for days, and doesnt tend to feed so for me it is the perfect stage amp.

The thing is solid, and very heavy, weighs more than my 4x12. i think you could use it to break rocks.

i have never delt with them but they are all the way off in the UK so it is probably terrible.

Awesome amp. Does everything i need it too. it makes my friends jealous, and they have some mean equipment. What more can i say. If you like mid-driven hardcore rather than laser-ish metal distortion go for this amp. Theyre cheap and sound good, where could you go wrong?

All tube, 100W, two non-switchable channels. Pull boost on bass, mid, treble, and pre-amp gain. Voltage and ohm selectors. Two speaker outs and effects loop. No reverb.

I play a Gibson SG and a Martin Barre signature model Washburn Falcon. Both guitars sound great through this amp. I play lead guitar in a classic/hard rock band (Zep, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Foghat, etc), and this amp is perfectly well suited for it, it's the real deal.

I've not had a problem with amp noise, my unit is nice and quiet, unlike my old Randall RG-80, which sounds like a 747 at take-off.

This Laney amp has all the tone one expects from a tube amp, and more. As someone has already stated, some other well known tube amps sound solid state by comparison.

Each note is well defined and clear. After playing about an hour the amp hits a groove and really starts to sing (God this amp sounds good). Laney did well in putting the word "LEAD" on the front panel, it has tons of sustain.

No real channel switching but I've been able to go from molten distortion to reletively clean simply by using the controls ON MY GUITAR. I turn my bridge pick up all the way up, set my neck pick up at about 3 or 4, then simply use my toggle switch to go from dirty to almost clean ... works great!

No reverb is a drawback. I'm not really into a lot of reverb but a little trailing "chaah" at the end would be nice ... and just a tad to enhance the solos. But after you and the amp get warm you really don't care much anymore, the amp just sounds so good.

I haven't tried plugging a reverb unit into the FX loop, don't know if I want too, I really don't want to plug anything into this amp that may take away from the monster tone it produces.

It survived a 2,000 mile ride with UPS, seems well built.

Never delt with.

Yes, at these prices, I'd certainly buy another if it were lost or swiped.

made sometime in the mid to late 80's, this amp only really has two missing features that you can complain about for something 15 years old. there's no channel switching and there's no reverb. other than that, it has just about everything else. push/pull boost feature on three bands of eq, footswitchable preamp for gain boost, high and low inputs, voltage selector, impedance selector (4,8,16), effects loop, and two speaker-outs. 4 12ax7 7205's in the preamp, two el34's in the power section for 50 extremely loud watts. I don't care about the lack of reverb, but two channels would be nice.

my main guitar is an ash-bodied fender deluxe super strat with a seymour duncan pearly gates humbucker in the bridge position and "super fat super strat" single coils in the middle and neck positions. the head is plugged into an ampeg v412 speaker cab. 80% of this amp works really well only with the humbucker, which is to be expected, it is after all a high-gain, rock/metal intended creature. it does work very well with the humbucker too, the distortion sounds beautiful, anything from AC/DC style classic rock to 'maiden to near-mesa levels of gain. Since i play mainly rock/punk/emo with this amp, it has worked out quite well for me. marshall distortion and beyond for a fraction of the cost.
beyond distorted sounds though, this amp leaves a little to be desired, the clean sounds are unimpressive, and overdrive, rather than distortion for blues is difficult to find. I did finally find a setting that gave me a pretty good british (go figure) blues sound though, and happily played along with clapton for two hours straight upon that discovery.
to sum it up: great for distortion, punk, rock, metal, all sound great through this amp. buy this long before you drop huge amounts on a marshall or maybe even a boogie. find something else for blues, or clean sounds. since it goes without saying that high-gain heads are not really intended for the latter sounds, i'm going to rate the sound based on the former sounds.

when i bought this head, i got it for half the original asking price because it was not functioning when i bought it. some idiot in the store didn't wait long enough for the tubes to warm up and couldn't figure out why the amp wasn't making noise... ready for this?.... so he pulls out one of the fuses while the thing is still on, blowing half the preamp tubes instantly and frying a bunch of other stuff at the same time. genious. but, the salesman tells me if i buy it now, for $130 , they'll send to the repair center as an in-stock repair, so i don't have to pay for the work, and then if i still don't like it when it comes back, i have 14 days to return it for a full refund. so needless to say, this is what i did, and it worked and sounded great when it came back. had one little issue with the preamp 1 switch not working right after that, but other than that, it's been golden. so except for the occasional complete idiot attack, this amp's pretty reliable. daddy's junky music hooked me up on this one.

I've been playing for about 5 years now, i'm 22. I don't own much other gear because i'm in college and i'm pretty broke- cheap acoustic, cheap epiphone les paul with stickers all over it, fender champion 30 amp. If this were stolen (i can't imagine losing something this big) i'd be upset because i wouldn't be able to sell it for cash towards my next toy. don't get me wrong, i like this amp a good deal, but i'm mellowing a little and looking into purchasing an all tube combo. I'm not in a serious band anymore, and i'm moving back to playing blues, which is what got me into guitar in the first place. for anybody in a rock-minded band, you couldn't ask for a better amp for the money. really a great deal, marshall with out the price tag. i'm giving a 9 because it really is a one trick pony, but dammit, it's good at what it does.

UPDATE FROM MY PREVIOUS POST:

I have spent some time now with the Laney and absolutely love it. The single channel doesn't even bother me now, I just use a distortion pedal to toggle clean/dirty and both tones are fantastic. It sounds really crushing or pretty, depending on how you set it. The push/pull EQ's give this amp a TON of versatility, way more than other amps that come to mind or I have tried.

My setup is this: Brian Moore i2 > Boss OC-2 Octave > MXR Phase 90 > Boss DS-1 > EH Small Clone > MXR 6 Band EQ > Laney Pro-Tube > Marshall 1960B 4x12 w/ 65 watt Celestions.

I've been able to quickly dial up a late 80's thrash tone, blues tones, Beatles tones, 70's arena rock, Sabbath, Nirvana, Nu-metal (yuck) and so on using just the above setup. The trick is the amp sounds good no matter what you do. Mainly I pull the bass and mids and cut some of the bass on the EQ to avoid that woofing sound--it is great for the indie noise rock that I fancy.

I've already convinced one person to hang up their dreams of the Peavey XXX by one listen of this amp--they now own one of these and couldn't be happier. Amazing deal. I got my entire half stack for 400 dollars total.