I just purchased an Orange Micro Dark amplifier after a lot of research and experimentation. I tried the Dark at the local music store a couple of times in recent months. I was very impressed. Many different tones are available from clean to trashy and a lot in between. It would easily drive a 2x12 Marshall cab in the store with a lot to spare. It easily drives the speakers to a level too loud for the store. Having a 12AX7 pre-amp gives it a very "tube quality" sound. In short, it is very impressive for a small 20 watt hybrid amp. I have a Microcube GX, a Katana 50 and a Katana Artist. I would have thought that would meet every need I would ever have. The Microcube was my first amp and I used it for everything including travel. When traveling, I like to practice with headphones when I might disturb others. The Katanas are too big to travel with easily. My hearing is poor. I wear a set of high quality hearing aids. All three of my amps have a headphone output. But, the volume from the headphone outputs to fail to adequately drive any of several headphones that I have including a Bose Quiet Comfort. I cannot wear headphones with my hearing aids due to feedback. I also tried feeding the amp output through several headphone amplifiers with poor results. I took my Bose headphones to the store today and tried them with the Micro Dark. It was exceptional! I was sold on the spot. After getting it home, I discovered several very useful qualities. It is small and light. It will easily fit into a carry on bag. It also appears to be well built and rugged. The included power supply is 12 volts rated at 2 amps. I have a couple of deep discharge 12 volt AGM batteries (90 ah and 60 ah). Either would drive the amp for a long weekend at a tailgate party or festival. I patched the Micro Dark into the 12 inch Waza speaker in the Artist. Incredible sound! I am going to start looking for a knock around 10" or 12" cab. It is also very simple to use: volume, shape, and gain. The shape is so responsive. You can play a chord and then rotate the shape know to zero in the desired tone and then play with the gain for anything between clean and violent. Such a deal. $185 out the door including a speaker cable. fos1
Congrats! What's really cool about that model is that it has an FX Loop which you don't find on very many amps that size.
// that model is that it has an FX Loop That was another deciding factor. The original Micro Terror, though $30 cheaper, does not have the FX Loop. Thank you, v/r Jeff
I'm happy to hear that it's full of tones, because I found the regular Micro to be a deceiving one trick pony amp. If I come across a Dark Micro, I'll give it a spin.
There is significant interaction between the volume, shape and gain adjustments. During my research, I found a video on youtube that demoed that interaction. I will see if I can find it. v/r Jeff
I'm glad you dig it, a lot of people do. I had one for about a year and just could not coax a sound that I liked out of it at anything other than very high volume and only through a 4x12 cab. Every other cabinet (from the little Orange 1x8 to a couple 1x12's and a 2x12) sounded awful with it and at anything other than gigging volume it lacked definition but at the same time had a fizzy quality to the distortion...basically fuzzy mud. Maybe I got a bad one?
I mainly purchased it for travel. I have the Katana Artist. I like the Orange amps, I was considering one of the "full size" terrors but put it off. Thanks, Jeff
I'm a fan of the Orange Micro Terror. Mine has excellent tone through a set of home made speaker cabinets, I like it very much, especially the small and handy size. Mine doesn't sound thin, played with my instruments, my pedals and my speaker cabs. I think it sounds best through a home made cab with two 4 Ohm speakers in series (to make 8 Ohms), a ten inch and a twelve inch. This thing looks like a toy, but it is NOT. I made a small base for mine out of scrap wood I had around. There are pictures of it on other threads here, I know. The base keeps the title amp steady on top of the cab. The Micro Dark seems like more of everything, for a small amount of extra money. An f/X out is definitely a nice feature, and I believe the Micro Dark has enough other features to justify the extra expense. I don't play this rig loud very often but use if for living room practice. It can actually rattle the windows in my house when I do turn it up. I don't hear any tonal artifacts from having the transformer so close to the amp... Maybe if I played loud, I would. I worried about that when I built my little base for the amp, figuring they put the transformer at the end of a meter of cable for a reason. Anybody got a thought about this proximity of amp and transformer?
