AD30H 30-watt 2-channel Head Review

Incredible tone

Title says it all, I play country/western style with a telecaster and I've used it with my lap steel with palm benders (essentially pedal steel guitar) and I have yet to find a tone that doesn't sound good, 30 watts provides the right amount of breakup you're looking for in a jam space or studio, unless you're trying to play in a football stadium without a PA this thing will do… read more everything you're looking for ! Channel 2 is full of saturated vintage overdrive tones and the clean channel is sparkly and glassy

---

Cancel Comment

The best out there

This amp does it all. I had a rockerverb 100 in the past and felt it was too much. The AD30 has the best tone out there and is CLASS A LOUD!!! I have it running through the orange 412 and it rips. The amp is beautiful all the way along the volume and gain knobs — something I've never been used to. I could never get a good in-between sound with the rockerverb, and prior to that… read more I had a fender deville which was insanely loud/middle/unusable past 2 and a half on the volume knob. If you're considering this amp, just pull the trigger. Tube amps are going to be harder and harder to come by, and all of the FX loop nonsense and bells and whistles of the other amps in orange's line don't hold a candle to the tone and usability of an AD30. If you want "super clean" chimey sounds that make your ears bleed, get a fender amp. If you want some grit and badassery of creamy, tube-driven tone, go no further and get this amp. PS it takes pedals great.

---

Cancel Comment

MIsleading Name

This is the rock and blues amp to buy. It does edge of break-up cleans like nothing else to juicy saturated overdrive tones. The AD30 sadly gets confused as being a copy or evolution of a Vox AC30 just because of the name. I want to clarify the naming of the AD30. This was one of the first amp designs Ade Emsley did for Orange. That's right the AD in AD30 are just the first two… read more letters of Ade's name. This is not a Vox! The sound of this amp is that of a Plexi on 10 without but it does this at most volume settings. That's exactly why legends like Billy Gibbons, Prince, and Jimmy Page have been seen using these heads in the past. If you always wanted that overdriven Plexi sound but at sound levels that won't cause deafness and a much better EQ section at nearly half the cost of a new Plexi then this is the amp you need. It even has two completely separate pre-amp sections and each can go from clean to vintage overdrive. Channel two has a stiffer bass response and an added mid-range voicing which is great for crunch tones or cutting through during a solo. I can't recommend this amp enough (metalheads excluded).

---

Cancel Comment

Vintage Rock to Stooges

I got one of these amps second-hand from a buddy I share a studio space with. It sounded great at first but after a while it started to sound really trebly and harsh. Not sure how long the previous owner had it but it has some visible wear so I assume it's been through a lot. I swapped out the tubes (with tung sol ax7s and EHX el84s) and now it sounds better than ever! It's exactly… read more what I wanted out of an amp. It can be clean, but I mostly use channel one as a light crunch/edge of breakup sound and channel two I run the gain wide open. It never gets too distorted, but it has a warm overdriven sound that has a sort of "ripped speaker" fuzziness that I love. It sounds great throughout the range of the master volumes but the sweet spot is definitely around 2 o'clock and up. It does have a reputation as an amp that does one thing very well but isn't as versatile as other options. I agree with that, but with channel one in the edge of breakup sweet spot I can drastically change the amps character using drive pedals. More often than not, however, I prefer how the amp sounds on its own, maybe with some light compression and a boost. It's still nice to know I have the option to get a more modern sound out of it using pedals if needed. And speaking of pedals, without an effects loop it does require some dialing in with reverb/delay pedals. It opened my eyes to using reverb/delay as tone shapers rather than just as effects that follow a sound I've already dialed in. Fuzz pedals need some dialing in as well, as if you run the gain high on the amp fuzz pedals with start to get muddy. Having two channels ensures you can have one channel set up to take pedals well and one that pumps out a great naturally overdriven sound. I'd recommend it if you like vintage rock and roll, 70's punk, or overdriven indie rock tones. I wouldn't recommend it as a first amp or for people that want heavy distortion or pristine reverb and delay sounds mixed with overdriven tube amp saturation.

---

Cancel Comment

Excellent and very versatile amp

So I did a little research with mine and fed and learned a lot about this circuit, which I felt I needed to pass on. The main finding that people should be aware of is that this amp DOES have a crystal clean setting that sounds great. With the master volume all the way up on either channel (or lower, once you realize how loud that actually translates to) the amp will be perfectly… read more clean at volumes that will easily work with a drum kit. People may miss this option because the Gain setting needs to be fairly low, but there really is no issue of head room once this is dialed in. This setting takes pedals well, from fuzz to delay and reverb--you're solid. The second is that this amp can get a solid power stage distortion, just like a vintage amp. My AC30, on the contrary, cannot. Keep the master volume all the way up (removing it from the circuit, aka "vintage") and start to increase the gain setting. The power stage will distort before the pre-amp, giving a good odd-order distortion and allowing a full chord to ring clear but with a ballsy growl. This setting also takes pedals well, or can be combined with some pre-amp distortion at higher gain settings for a godly pure-tube break up that is really second to none. This will be at the amp's max volume though, and there is no way around that to get this tone. After that it should be noted that the twin channel setup is super convenient. I now use a crystal clean setting on the clean channel and a pre-amp crunch on the second channel. It really does the latter well, by the way, so you can get good crunch at low volumes. The only downside, I suppose, is that you will need to buy a reverb/trem pedal because they aren't built in. This gives you some flexibility. The amp is also expensive, but you literally are buying two entirely independent pre-amp signal paths. Pretty neat.

---

Cancel Comment