Dark Terror 15/7-watt High-gain Tube Head Review

Brutal Little Amp

I've wanted a Dark Terror for several years but for some reason never pulled the trigger on it until now. This little box is a beast of an amp. I have the TH-30 and there are a lot of similarities between the two-sound wise. I think the Dark terror has a little more gain and a tighter gain structure than the TH-30. I haven't tried it on the 7-watt setting yet only the 15 watt and… read more this thing gets LOUD! What I really love is the simplicity of the amp with the shape knob. It's so easy to dial in a great sound with it. Yes, it's only a 1 channel amplifier but there are so many great tones you can coax out of it easily that I don't really miss a second channel with it. I mainly play heavier music and this amp nails the sound perfectly. Did I mention it Has SO MUCH GAIN? I keep mine set at about 1:00 on the gain and as you go past that it does get more gain, but it also gets more fizzy so there is a fine line there to balancing the gain and the fizz. It can also do more rock based and blues tones very easily. Just an awesome little amp for many types of music. I really only play at home and record with this amp. I haven't played it in a band setting so I can't really speak to if it will keep up with a heavy hitting drummer but as I said earlier it does get very loud. After playing it for a while I found myself wondering why I waited so long to purchase this amp.

---

Cancel Comment

Not your grandpa's Orange

This little monster does it all. I usually work with the volume knob on my guitar anyway, so getting the clean tones out of this are a breeze. Toss your favorite delay pedal into the loop and let the ambient tones flow. Dial the shape to 8 o'clock and get that bright shimmer.....But the gain....oh boy the gain.... Such a little ripper of an amp. I play a lot of downtuned 7 string… read more stuff and if you put the shape at 3 o clock, gain at 1 o clock, and volume to taste with a clean boost....uggghhh... Sounds sooo good. My 6 strings in higher tunings have a great sound too. You don't really set it and forget it, but if you play with the shape and let the tones flow, you can find the sound you're looking for. During my mixing process I will EQ it to dial back some of the Orange fizz to set it in the mix better in a recording but other than that.....wow.... My ultimate work horse and has just the right amount of features I need to not get into tone chasing/ option paralysis for hours... This amp is a winner!

---

Cancel Comment

Serious Tone for 15watts

This Dark Terror head has way more output than I was expecting for the wattage. It makes my 412 cabs thump hard! The only thing I recommend is a eq in the the loop when playing at lower volumes that makes a huge difference in the tone if it doesn't sound like you want it too at low volume levels. So overall I am very happy with this head and recommend it to any metal player that… read more likes the orange tone.

---

Cancel Comment

Amazing...

As a fan of Orange Amplifiers, I was making a progression from their all-solid-state CR120 (a really good option, honestly) into the hybrids (Micro Terror and Micro Dark, both incredible sounding and deceptively loud) and wanted to make the jump to an all-tube head without dropping 1000+ bucks. After watching countless hours of video reviews and demos of every amp Orange makes,… read more I was kinda split between the Dark Terror, Dual Terror, and the Tiny Terror as I wasn't looking to duplicate a specific guitarist's sound (Brett Hinds or James Root) and the Rockerverb heads were well over what I was looking to spend. Given my experiences with the Micro Terror and Micro Dark hybrid heads, I was a bigger fan of the gain in the Dark line for 2 reasons: the gain was a bit more brutal and there was simply more gain to play with. Thus, I ordered a Dark Terror and began plotting what signal chain I wanted to use with it... turns out, the only pedals I use with it now are a tuner, noise gate, and an overdrive to fine-tune the metal monstrosity that is this amp. My personal favorite sound from this amp comes with the gain at noon and the shape around noon-to-12:30 into a Hughes & Kettner TM212... the tone is just insane, and it gives a nearly perfect all-around metal sound that still has gobs of gain left to go if you want to dive into the deep end of sludgy doom riffs or twist it back to 8:30 on the gain to really clean it up. The only thing I wish this amp had that it doesn't have is a second channel so you can flip back and forth from sparkly cleans to filthy gain with a tap on a footswitch. Oh, and don't let the 7W/15W thing discourage you from picking this up... the volume knob at 2 should be plenty loud enough to get the cops called on you.

---

Cancel Comment

Dark Terror

This head is amazing!Its loud and sounds great! I only wish it had 2 channels.

---

Cancel Comment