Rocker 32 2x10" 30-watt Stereo Tube Combo - Black Review

Naturally Surprising

Bought it for the stereo FX loop to unlock the potential of my stereo pedals but it's the Natural channel that made me fall in love with this amp. I've had a 65 Princeton Reverb RI with a Celestion Alnico Gold upgrade as my main clean amp but I am really digging how the Rocker's clean/natural channel sparkles without any effects turned on. This amp is a keeper!

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Tried it. Bought it.

I've been a JC-40 believer for the longest time. Still am, but one issue I always have with it is whenever I engage drives, notes start mushing together - I lose all the attack on the notes. I've heard of people doing really well using dirt pedals with the JC-40, but I didn't really like it for what I do (worship musician and film composer). Then I met the Orange Rocker 32. I brought… read more my pedalboard into Sweetwater's retail store and they kindly pulled the Rocker 32 from their warehouse for me to try in my own private amp room they set up for me. WOW. A stereo tube amp for $1000 seemed too good to be true., but I've found that there is no better stereo amp until you get to Magnatone, but of course, that's 2x the cost. You get the beautiful British tube saturation with this amp, and the cleans are really nice. To me, the clean tone of this amp sounds like a Vox AC-30 that's been through some studio processing already. Just really articulate, but more controlled than sensitive, and of course, all that British chime. Don't mistake "Controlled" for "squashed" - I found I could bring the energy to the max and then easily dial it back to more chill, ambient playing without worrying too much. Doesn't really have the bass response you'd find in a Fender or the Roland JC-40, which makes it not the greatest personal listening amp of all time, but when you are on stage or recording, you're not going to want all that bass anyway. Lastly, the stereo separation is the best I have ever heard, too. I don't know what they did to separate left from right so well, but the stereo image is definitely wider than my JC-40. All in all, it's an incredible amp and deserves more recognition. Great work Orange, and thanks for being so clutch Sweetwater :)

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Exactly

So simple and yet so perfect. All the boxes are checked: great great great with my pedals, loud enough to gig with room to spare, fantastic transparent clean tone, zero hum/hiss, reasonably portable @ 50 pounds, beautiful construction (mine has orange telex), stereo functionality is worth exploring. Bonus - the 1-2-3 Stratocaster hum, which had been drastically reduced due to… read more shielding and wiring mods, is now completely gone with this amp. Should come with a foot switch considering it's $5-10 worth of parts... but any generic latching 1-button switch will work. Overall.... home run!

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Orange Ricker

Clean 5 Star any Sound you want on the overdrive side.

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Probably as close to perfect as one can get.

The designers at Orange must have tapped into my psyche to steal my ideas. I have long been thinking about a stereo amp based on a quad of EL84's. I never got around to building it, but now I don't have to. This is simply the best platform available for guitarists who use a lot of pedals. In the stereo loop I use a Strymon Timeline into a T.C. Electronic Hall of Fame 2 reverb and… read more with this amp the only word I can think of to describe it is magical. The clean channel is pure and detailed. You can get a lot of different distortion tones on the dirty channel, but my favorite setting is just a touch of grit and then hit it with an overdrive. You do have to work with the tone controls on the dirty channel, not all the distortion sounds are pleasing.

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