2007 Orange Rocker 30

Overview

This release year Rocker 30 is a stripped down amp with a focus on the dirty channel. While it does have a clean channel, it is a simple one-knob (volume) channel, and isn’t all that popular. I personally think the Natural channel sounds fantastic, but you have to be happy with the tone from your guitar and your speakers as-is, so to speak, since you can’t roll off the highs of a bright tone or roll down the bass if it feels muddy. Through a quad of V30’s (factory speaker choice for this head) it sounds excellent to me.

The dirty channel really is the highlight though, with a surprising amount of gain and a very full-bodied, strong midrange type of tone. It stays clear even with the gain maxed, akin to something like a Marshall JCM800, but this Orange has a much strong bass/lower mids presence. It excels in the mid-gain tones with a lot of cut while retaining some punchy fullness that really shakes the room, and adding a boost pedal for solo tones sounds fantastic.

Interestingly, this amp ran side by side with the Rockerverb 50 (released in 2003) which had a quad of 6V6 power tubes in class AB. This amp is unique with its pair of EL34’s run in “Class A.” While it’s not true Class A (no guitar amp really is, even the venerated VOX AC30), the cathode bias configuration in the power section provides a noticeable, unique sonic signature to an amp that to the layman might look like just another spin on a JCM800. At the time of release, the only other EL34 powered amp in the Orange lineup was the class AB Thunderverb 50, which to my ear has less gain and bass than the Rocker 30.