Orange Amplification OR50H 40th Anniversary Model Orange Head

Features? Well you expext a guitar amp to have a volume, tone and maybe a master volume. This one does too. But not much else. No effect channel, no reverb or channel switching, not even high or low inputs. Well it does have an HF drive control. Very Nice!

The closest cousin to this amp is the Marshall Vintage Modern 2266. Both are single channel, three gain stages, KT66 tubes instead of Oranges EL34's. The Orange is a good deal more expensive though. The EL34's are more agressive than the KT66's. Kick up the HF drive control, the channel volume, set the Master volume to taste and you've got a Rock and Roll beast. Classic British tone at it's best.I don't use a lot of pedals, get the lead sound you want and then turn your guitar volume down, it cleans up quite nicely! Maybe not the amp for Metal though.

No problems yet.

Everything James said in the previous review is true. No manual, at the store or on line. No registration card. My experience trying to register it on line was the same, I have no idea if it went through. I really don't even know what the warranty is for sure.

I've been playing Marshall amps for 15 years and after 3 songs with the OR50 at the last practice the band said, "that's the amp!" And at our first gig with it, it inspired me. I played better. I know, better equipment doesn't REALLY make you play better, but when the sound you getis the sound in your head, the sound you always wanted, you get excited. You do play better.

This is a review on the 2008 40th Anniversary model Orange Head. Firstly, appearance wise it's awesome as it has an ultra cool retro pics only plexiglass front. It's a single channel amp that has a 50 watt output and is incredibly easy to use.
Obviously being a single channel amp it doesn't come with many features and isn't hugely flexible so it's not for people who want to play hugely different styles of music during a gig.
It has a socket for a footswitch that will let you turn off the master volume and run it through the gain channel only, which means that if you tweaked it right you'd be able to use it as a booster for solos, although I'm sure that anyone who buys this amp will have a overdrive/booster pedal already for this job.
Now for the bad stuff, it doesn't come with any kind of instructions, registration or warranty papers. I know I said it's easy to use but when you spend this amount of money on an amp it would have been nice. It also doesn't come a footswitch or even a cover. I've owned Mesas and Marshalls in the past and these items always seem to come as standard.

This amp sounds amazing, very creamy British sounding overdrive when the gain is cranked to about 2 o'clock, although if you're after Heavy Metal style tones then this amp is not for you. However, it'll do Britpop, 60's 70's classic rock and modern rock excellently. It does nice cleans too, although I'm sure most people who buy one of these would be buying it to get classic crunchy Jimmy Page style tones.
As I've said, I had Mesas and Marshalls in the past, this is my first Orange tube amp and I can't believe the difference in sound. This amp is the best sounding amp Ive ever played. I'm sure that the simplicity of the amp has let Orange spend more time concentrating on the sound it makes rather than sorting out other channels etc.

No problems yet, although as it has no cover it will get scuffed, scratched etc over time.

I eventually worked out that I could register the amp with them on their website and did, although I didn't get any sort of confirmation back via email. The screen didn't even tell me that the registration had been successful.

I've never had to contact them yet about anything going wrong with the amp, although I've heard that they can be rather unhelpful at times when you need their help!!!

Basically, the amps doesn't have many features but the things it does do it does very well!!! Tonewise, it's brilliant.