With the Thunderverb and Rockerverb in my collection now, I discovered the Dual Dark, which is truly an Orange unlike any other. While based on a similar platform to those other two channel, 50 watt Oranges, this one has 4 gain stages on each channel and can get far more saturated overdrive tones than either.
I always thought the cosmetics were very cool, kind of an inverted color look on the front panel with a strip of orange through the center and the crest so you can’t forget who builds this amp. This amp is now discontinued and very difficult to find as they didn’t sell all that well and really target a niche audience - heavy metal players who like Oranges. It has a bit of that classic Orange fuzz to the note attack, but is more open sounding, with a much more aggressive voicing, smoother mids, and far far more gain than any other Orange amp in the range.
It’s a heck of an amp, and if you’ve played the TV or RV amps, you already know how to dial this one in. Channel B’s shape control is very usable and that channel even does a great clean-ish tone, while Channel A’s traditional treble/middle/bass EQ gives that channel a little more versatility to dial in what you like. I found I really liked to use Channel B for high gain rhythm sounds and Channel A with a little more mids and less bass for my lead tones.
This amp has the same great “attenuator” master volume control, but lacks the spring reverb the other 50 watters have, which is a shame though I understand reverb is not really a priority on an amp like this. I think that extra tube just became the additional gain stages for this one. I expected it to be voiced much like the Thunderverb, and I’ve heard this amp compared to the TV50 and TV200 amps online, but now that I’ve played them both in person they are really different amps and cover different ground. That said, the TV with the right boost could probably get pretty close but the structure of the mids is so different that it’s difficult to replicate the Dual Dark.
