How good is Orange Tiny Terror

[Bandini]

For rock like white stripes, Rolling stones, Black Sabbath etc... is the 15W enough for small gigs and rehersals?

 

[markb]

They're loud enough but you won't get much clean headroom.

 

[hubberjub]

They're loud enough but you won't get much clean headroom.

Absolutely right. I regularly gig with a 20 watt Soldano and it is plenty loud for most gigs. Anything bigger than that and you're going to mic your amp anyway. I've heard a lot of good things about the Tiny Terror.

 

[piebaldpython]

For cleaner headroom, Orange now makes a 30W DualTerror head...

 

[gndboy]

The TT is an interesting beast. There is little clean headroom, but it can roar with an edge. I have replaced all the tubes in mine, which I play through a 12" Celestion 30 (pre-broke-in by Avatar) in a Jenkins 1X15 cab with homemade baffle adapter. I use a Mullard ECC83 in the first preamp position, and a Sylvania 12AX7A in the second. The finals are NOS GE 6BQ5's. These tubes are a significant improvement over the stock bottles, and cost around $150 total. The sound is much more sweet.

Along the way I got hold of the TT schematic; the amp architecture is rather unusual. The GAIN control operates the first preamp tube. The VOLUME control operates the finals. The TONE control functions as part of the driver/phase inverter which I think is bizarre.

I use mine in the studio and it has a lot of shimmer when used with the VOLUME dimed and the GAIN as a volume control. The TT is not terribly loud when used this way, but it records well and takes pedals nicely. As the GAIN control is advanced this amp gets quite loud and there are a lot of different flavors along the path from clean to wrecking ball to atomic aftermath. The sound is always bright with the TONE control above 9 o'clock. Darker tones with the control around 7 o'clock are pretty smokey. Very nice to my ear.

The TT isn't likely the best stand-alone rig, but with a little work and some good tubes it has a quality voice that is useful with both double- and single-coil pickups. The TONE control I find sounds best for most styles way toward its lower adjustment. There's nothing else out there quite like it.

 

[Jimi75]

A friend plays his TT exclusively in his classic rock band.
Attached to a 4x12 you won't need any louder, when the drummer is playing "normal" dynamic and not playing like "the animal". It's true that the clean headroom is lacking, but the amp reacts to your dynamics and you can control the sound with your fingers and of course with your guitar's volume knob.

 

[gndboy]

A friend plays his TT exclusively in his classic rock band.
Attached to a 4x12 you won't need any louder, when the drummer is playing "normal" dynamic and not playing like "the animal". It's true that the clean headroom is lacking, but the amp reacts to your dynamics and you can control the sound with your fingers and of course with your guitar's volume knob.

The drummer is almost always the problem unless y'all have keyboards with a generous left hand, which can make mashed potatoes out of the low mids. Does your friend's TT use the stock Chinese tubes? I found them strident and obnoxious. Good to hear of a TT on the front lines. The touch-sensitivity of the TT is awesome. Given a musical drummer, I get your point.

 

[Jimi75]

The drummer is almost always the problem unless y'all have keyboards with a generous left hand, which can make mashed potatoes out of the low mids. Does your friend's TT use the stock Chinese tubes? I found them strident and obnoxious. Good to hear of a TT on the front lines. The touch-sensitivity of the TT is awesome. Given a musical drummer, I get your point.

He uses it stock. No upgrades or other tubes.

 

[gndboy]

That's great. I'm gradually moving away from tubes over the past five or so years. I'm a bassist (electric shovel) by trade, and it really broke my heart to part with my Sunn 300T and the half-dozen 6550C's. The tubes were just too expensive and the maintenance was a drag. That amp sounded simply exquisite. I replaced it with an Eden '550 while in Japan and that amp sounds about as good, and weighs 20 pounds as opposed to 75, and just requires vacuuming every now and then.

I just love the Tiny Terror sound. I do recording at home, and I just like to kick out the jams on guitar from time to when. I was a JBL tech in the '70's, and got a snootfull of all the stuff that was happening at the time. The decline in the availability of high-quality vacuum tubes for audio applications is another of the things driving me toward solid state. The perfection of MOS-FET's has really helped solid-state circuits get beyond the horrible days of CBS Fender and Thomas Organ Vox, and Kustom et al. I do believe Peavey and Carvin were the last major producers of truly bad-sounding solid-state amps.

So I really don't know how practical it is to use a TT full-time other than my experience with drum monkeys (apologies to the primates) within my immediate realm. I imagine successfully playing a wedding reception in a large hall with a TT+4X12 would be challenging lacking a large PA system. This monkey really likes his TT+1X12, and I shall continue to goose it. Of course, if it's long-ball or no count, by all means crank it.

These forums are great. Thanks for the wonderful provocation.