NAD Orange Rocker 30

Make it loud here.
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NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by HNB » Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:09 pm

Along with paying for some fillings for my daughter, I was also looking for a new tube head to try out. I was mostly looking at Orange OD120's but also was thinking maybe a Mesa Rectifier or Mark 5:25. I like the Mesa distortion, but the more I thought about it, I tend to like to play more overdriven sounds vs heavy metal. That steered me back to Orange. I was digging the OR15 head, but I had read some people complaining about Orange quality control. I kept listening to demos on YouTube to try to figure out what amp would work best for me. I wanted one with a master volume so I don't piss off the neighbors. I happened to stumble on a Rocker 30 head online. Sounded interesting on YouTube so I picked it up. I am guessing it is similar to a Rockerverb except no reverb.

Hoping this one is an Orange not a lemon.....
Last edited by HNB on Sat Feb 11, 2017 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: INC Orange Rocker 30

Post by MechaBulletBill » Tue Feb 07, 2017 3:12 am

There's good sounds in those rockers. They don't get crazy saturated, kind of tasteful marshally overdrive. I ran mine mostly clean and it was fine for that.

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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by HNB » Sat Feb 11, 2017 12:25 pm

The head arrived! It is in great shape. It is missing the handle (which I ordered.) I hope it uses #10x32 screws like Fenders do.... I ordered a new handle but they don't come with the damn screws... LOL

Only got to play it a little. I tried it through my 1x12 cab and my 2x12 cab. I like both, but am going to use the 2x12. It is closed and the lows sound a bit nicer though that cab. The partly open 1x12 sounds better with my Silvertone head. (Probably because that was intended for a bass so the less bassy sound works better with that head.)

It has two 8ohm outs and one 16ohm out. Some people said they had trouble matching the clean channel volume with the dirty one. Not sure why since the dirty channel has a master volume. I had no problems matching them with different gain settings. I like the dirty channel around noon where it adds a little overdrive to the clean sound. The full gain sound is fine, but I think I will likely use pedals for the over the top settings and use my amp's sound for a more natural overdrive/clean. If you can grab one of these, I would go for it. Really nice clean channel. I don't miss the eq on it. Works great! (ALSO VERY LOUD. I think I didn't go much over 9 o'clock with the volumes and it was as loud as I would want in my living room. Would be no problem to piss off the neighbors with this amp.

Image20170211_114448 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Image20170211_114502 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Image20170211_114306 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Image20170211_114312 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr
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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by HNB » Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:48 pm

Back from the hardware store. If anyone else suffers from the same situation as me where you need screws that will work with the tee nuts in the orange amp already, I can confirm that #10-32 fit the Orange tee nuts. I got the same length Fender uses (1 1/4") for their handles and looks like it will work just right.
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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by HNB » Sat Feb 11, 2017 9:28 pm

The amp came with matched JJ power tubes but five different preamp tubes. I know this isn't a big deal, but I figured I could look up what kind of preamp tubes people tend to use in the Rocker 30. I saw Tung Sol mentioned several times along with JJ's (stock) or EHX tubes. I decided to go with Tung Sol because one person complained that there was less headroom in the clean channel with them. Since I like overdrive as part of my clean sound, I thought they might work well for me.

Thoughts on preamp tubes? This amp has three 12ax7 tubes. I believe half of v1 is the clean channel. The other half and v2 is the dirty channel. I forget what v3 was for.
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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by MechaBulletBill » Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:40 am

I thought svetlanas were the best choice for the power section.

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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by Nick and the Noise » Sun Feb 12, 2017 5:54 am

Had one of those before "upgrading" to a Rockerverb. By the way, they don't sound similar at all, that's why I put upgrading in quotation marks. How great the dirty channel was, the natural channel was a dud for me: just too dark and low volume (relative to the other channel). The Rockerverb clean channel is a huge improvements for a pedal junkie like me. For the dirty channel, it was going from an aggressive Marshall punk type sound on the Rocker to a fuzzy stoner sound on the RV. I think I liked the dirt of the Rocker more, but even better would be to combine the aggressiveness of the Rocker with the fuzziness of the RV.

I now have JJ's everywhere and a Tung Sol in V1. I read that JJ's can be dark in V1, so that's why I went with Tung Sol. Power tubes are still original Shuahang (which are supposed to be good, unlike the Shuahang preamp tubes).

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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by MechaBulletBill » Sun Feb 12, 2017 7:01 am

The tech I know uses shuguang's for most stuff.

The Rocker's dirt channel is actually quite a versatile clean channel. Max out the master, gain as volume. The eq is pretty powerful. Dirt from pedals. The only problem I had with it was that it seemed a bit fussy when it comes to dirt/fuzzes. I know somebody's reading this going "well yeah, it's an Orange, they don't take pedals" but it actually always sounded fine, just "felt" weird.

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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by HNB » Sun Feb 12, 2017 8:18 am

Good info. I think mine has a set of 6AC7 JJ's for power tubes. Do the power tubes influence sound as much as the preamp tubes?
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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by vale » Mon Feb 13, 2017 12:24 am

i had the 1x12 combo with the vintage celestion. jj tubes i think, not stock. it sounded great, throaty with enough scoop to make it an orange, not fizzy like some marshalls can be, or too scooped like some voxes can be. it's built like a tank. controls limited (& no effects loop) but effective in an old school way. & loud enough.

but was so unreliable, which surprised me because it's still the most expensive amp i have owned. valves died quick, maybe overheating, i don't know. one let down after another. & i was always careful with it because it was my main amp.
ultimately the combination of replacing valves too often & no effects loop mean it had to go. my abiding memory of it is great sound but high maintenance.

hopefully yours will be a longlifer, but thought i would offer a perspective on reliability (may be particular not general).
i am an animal.

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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by indiandysummer » Tue Feb 14, 2017 1:18 pm

Rocker 30s are the BOMB. Seriously. I think these are the best modern amps Orange has released. They don't have all the "features" of other amps, but they sound awesome, are super versatile and aggressive. Here's some answers and opinions to questions:

Tubes:
V1: Half for natural channel and half for the 1st gain stage of the dirty channel. I usually used low noise / high grade JJs since i would hammer it with pedals a lot. Tung Sol are good too for the added brightness for the natural channel. I like the chinese shuguang too, and they're cheap. I never liked putting fancy tubes in V1 because this is the tube that would go microphonic the quickest (due to slamming with pedals) and I just went with reliable/low noise.
V2: This is gain stage 2 and 3 for the dirty channel. I usually put some NOS JAN Phillips or RCA in this
V3: Phase inverter. You can actually try a 12AT7 or 7025 here. I think I ran mine with a NOS JAN phillips 12at7 which are still pretty cheap.

I wouldnt worry about getting any tubes matched for balanced gain stages or anything like that.

Power tubes: I basically always used the EHX 6CA7 in this amp. Really good match for the amp. JJ's are a good option too. Power tubes don't affect the character of this amp as much as preamp tubes, specifically V1.


Yeah, the natural channel is a bit quiet compared to the dirty channel. But you can get some volume and headroom out of it by running a clean boost (SHO or MXR microamp or whatever) into the amp for a hotter input signal. The 1 gain stage in the preamp for the natural channel is really low gain, so there is some clean volume remaining. I would always do this, and reduce the dirty channel gain to compensate, and leave the boost on all the time.

I never really understood the need for an f/x loop when you have the natural channel. I guess if you wanna use a lot of f/x on the dirty channel, then it makes sense. I Just used the natural as a pedal platform. It's great for that.

These amps are a real modern Orange classic, and deserve all the praise they get. They are SUPER unique to the modern Orange line. More like the AD30 than the RV series. They're probably the closest thing to an old OR120 as far as tone goes (way more gain available on the R30). I love these amps. I just sold mine, which was probably really dumb, but oh well. :) :fp:

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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by HNB » Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:08 pm

Thanks for all that info! I am happy to hear that because I was hoping to emulate the sound of the Japanese band The Pillows and their lead guitarist uses an OD120. Those are pretty pricey and I didn't want to have to do all the updates to one so I figured I would give the R30 a try. :)
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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by indiandysummer » Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:18 am

Sweet! The dirty channel is gonna be great for that. The OD had a master volume, so usually has way more gain available than an OR120. The R30 is very close to that type of sound. Big, uncompressed, agressive, kinda dark but in a clear way. If you wanna get all "OR120" on it, you can max the volume on the dirty channel and use the gain as volume. In my experience, OR120s are really clean amps because it's totally impractical to crank them these days.

That said, I'm down to 1 orange amp, which is my '73 pix only GRO100. Sounds awesome.

I can't understate my love for the R30. If I ever needed a 2 channel amp again, I would buy one again in a heartbeat. I've just kinda switched to a cleanish+pedals style (which still works well on the R30, actually).

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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by HNB » Wed Feb 15, 2017 5:45 pm

I was playing around with it more tonight. The clean channel is way too loud for the living room at just 50%. I am using it more like 15-20% with the clean channel. I tried the dirty channel with the gain as the volume and normal volume cranked. It reminds me of the sound of the clean channel but more tweakable with the EQ. I am still liking it in the dirty channel with the gain close to 50%-55% right when it starts to distort if you play harder. :) I usually have been playing with all three tones all maxed.
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Re: NAD Orange Rocker 30

Post by indiandysummer » Thu Feb 16, 2017 9:38 am

I basically always left my dirty channel gain at noonish (depending on pickups). That's a real sweet spot! I agree, the touch dynamics are awesome right there.

Obviously the EQ depends on pickups and stuff, but i usually had the mids maxed and the bass and treble pretty high. Glad you're digging it!

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