NAD - Orange Dual Dark 100

[GunnarJames]

I'll update my review in a week or two

Ahem, MONTH or two.

For those interested, I ended up pairing this amp with a Port City 2x12OS cabinet with a pair of Celestion G12K-100 speakers. Just got the speakers into the cab today and man, am I glad I didn't unload this thing now.

I take back what I said about the cleans not being loud enough. With the volume maxed and the attenuator off, I can push the gain to around 4 and stay clean, not 2.5 like I stated above. Not sure why the Ashdown cabinet wasn't getting the volume up there, and not just on the cleans but in general. Everything is substantially louder through the Port City.

The cleans are AMAZING. On both channels. So for those of you who dig the cleans on the Dark Terror, they're even nicer on this. Does warm, does chime, does sparkle. I was slightly surprised, I assumed that Channel A would be the go to channel for cleans since it has a more classic voicing but Channel B sounds just great. Different, a bit brighter with lots of spank (probably due to it just being tighter overall), but great.

And of course, the dirt. It's awesome. Warm and fat, very organic without losing any tightness or clarity. Of course, you can get it to sag with the attenuator for a looser type of sound.

The EQ on Channel A is fantastic. You can actually set any of the knobs to any of their extremes and still get a very musical and usable tone. I'd have to say that with probably 90% of the amps I've played through, the knob is labeled 0-10 but your actual usable window is 4-7. Turn the treble below a certain point, all mud. But with this amp, you can turn the treble all the way to nothing and it isn't muddy. Turn the bass all the way down, it's not ice picky. Combine this with the fantastic attenuator and you're open to so many tone options.

"But will it djent?"

THAT, I'm unsure. I don't have a guitar setup for that kind of thing or a Tubescreamer style pedal to boost it. It's an Orange, so it's obviously very different than something like a 5150/6505. It is way tighter than any other Orange I've played. I'm pretty confident you could get there with the proper gear if that's your thing, though in my opinion you'd be doing the amp and yourself a disservice if that's what you buy it for. 5150/6505 style amps do that sort of stuff in spades, it's really what they're good at and not much else. With the Dual Dark, you'd be severely underutilizing what it can do. My .

Anyway, that's my update. I'll get some sound clips up soon (eventually ).

 

[Endnote]

Mine's definitely keeping me happy too Gunnar. Channel A is definitely top notch for the versatility it offers and B is great for metal. I'm not really making or playing any Djent style tunes so I'll have to agree that it might not be for everybody. Though with a TS it definitely tightens it up, but like you said, the other available amps may do that genre better. But for sludge/stoner and D-beat it does exactly what I need.

 

[JD27]

You guys keeping these stock with the EL34s or have you given any thought to trying something else. I'd love to hear one with 6L6s. That flexibility in tubes was one of the things that I liked about these. Been debating a 50w for quite a while.

 

[GunnarJames]

I'm currently running the stock tubes, I've only really just begun diving in with it. I have one or two other gear purchases to make first, but I do plan on fitting this with their DIVO in the near future to do just that without having to rebias it constantly.

 

[JD27]

That is cool, I thought the DIVO was only available with the Rockerverb. Didn't realize there was a self install DIVO Kit available.

 

[GunnarJames]

Oh yea! You can install the DIVO into most amps, not just Orange stuff. I know in the older videos when it was first released they stated that an amp tech had to install it, but now you do it yourself and it takes about a half hour. Rob Chapman has a good demo of it as well if interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbSroxsbSTU

 

[JD27]

Yeah I checked that out last night actually. Seems pretty easy to install, a little pricy but definitely a cool addition for your favorite amp.

 

[Orren]

Just found this thread. Sorry I didn't earlier, because I use my Orange Dual Dark 100 with a custom 2x12 loaded with Celestial G12K100s and I could have told you it sounds godly!

I've owned a lot of tube amps, and I probably will own lots more. But I really love the sound of this one, it's extremely versatile and open sounding for a high gain amp, which is great. It's hard to manage vintage and modern high gain at the same time, but the Dual Dark 100 does.

Orren

 

[AChRush1349]

I wonder what this amp would be like with KT88's. Anyone try that yet?

 

[Orren]

That could be done, but the Orange Dual Dark doesn't have external bias points, so it would mean that the amp would need to be rebiased by a tech. So I'm guessing it's something that most people won't try as a matter of course.

Orren