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Orange Terror Just Dies?

S. Katz

S. Katz

Oct 24, 2008
141
9
Los Angeles
#1
I'm not trying to dump on Orange. It may be that I am the unluckiest player in the world. I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue:

My Terror Bass just died one day, after a few months of use. No smoke, odor, strange sounds, nothing. It just worked fine, and then a few hours later, I turn it back on, and nothing comes out. No problems with fuses, cables, connection, anything else. No strange gain-pushing effects in front of the head. No blocked vents. Never turned the volume above 2. Always keep minimum gain and tone controls almost flat. It just stopped.

So Orange replaces (not repairs) it. Second one works fine, for one month, then the same thing happens.

When it works, it's great. I love the tone. No problems. And Orange customer service has always been incredibly friendly, easy to access, and totally responsive. I would give the head a big thumbs up if it would just stop dying.

Has any else had this problem? (Orange tech support says there are no issues, and my experience is unique.) At this point, although I have no doubt Orange will make good on this, I'm leery about trusting the head during a gig. If I'm alone in this, I'll chalk it up to bad luck (or maybe good luck--should I be buying lottery tickets?). But if others are having the same problem, it would good to know.
 
#4
The guitar player in my band purchased an Orange Dual Terror guitar amp about three months ago. It died on him during a gig about a month ago. He had the tubes replaced and it worked fine for a while. Now he is having issues with the volume randomly fading in and out. He is thinking about selling it and going back to his Marshall head.
 
#6
FWIW, I used to play guitar with a band fairly regularly and I use a Tiny Terror head when I do; I've had it for a couple years and it's never failed on me once. I've pushed it to the max volume on occasion, played outside on hot summer days, done a couple gigs where we played more than an hour between breaks… TT just ate it all up and spat it back out with some raunchy tone.

I've heard they changed the manufacturer sometime after I bought mine, though, so I can't say that this would be indicative of current model reliability - but I hope it is, since I like the Orange brand.

BTW: I still play with the head when I do play guitar and right now in the band I've got that's just starting to get rolling, one of the guitarists is going to be using my Tiny Terror. It's still rocking strong at the last couple practices I've been at, despite not having been turned on in something like four months before that!
 
#9
I had a (somewhat) similar experience. I bought a new TB500, and within a couple weeks the light would start to flicker, and eventually the signal cut out (temporarily). I sent it back to Orange and they sent my another unit - that had a big dent in it. Sent it back, they sent me yet another one. It's only been a few weeks, but I haven't noticed anything weird going on. This was very frustrating, but the people at Orange were very friendly and helpful. Considering these are made in China, I think they're kind of hit-or-miss, but once you get a good one they kick some serious ass.
 
#10
No problems here... 4+ hours/week at reasonably high volume, high temperatures during summer, lots of vibrations from the cabs... Still looks and performs like the day I got it.

I'm running a Sansamp to the board to avoid hassle with the way-too-hot-DI so I always have a backup with me though.
 
#16
I haven't had any issue with mine (the beast is only 2 weeks old), but you scared the hell out of me because I'm in love with my OTerror!

I guess that most electronic equipment can fail on you someday, you just had bad luck... twice.




Sorry to hijack the thread but do you OT owners feel comfortable moving the head from your house to rehearsals or gigs? I mean, the head looks very "transportable" (with a nice handle and gigbag) but at the same time I feel that it's kind of "fragile", without wooden enclousure and so... can something (like tubes) be damaged by moving it frequently?
 
#18
I am using mine for half a year now without any issue. I've used the pretty hot DI often. It is loud but no problem for a serious mixing board.

in my eyes it sucks anyway if you drop an amp, no matter how much it weights an if its in an wooden enclosure, rack or case.

The thing never tricked or died on me, but the greatest part of people having issues with a dying signal or cutting out on the amp because of voltage-stuff are coming from the united states. so maybe, just maybe!!! this is an issue with running it on 230V (standard in the US, i think) and running it on 320V in Europe???
 

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