Orange Amplifiers

Orange was founded in 1968 by Clifford Cooper of London. Orange amps and P.A. were made by Clifford Cooper. Orange started as a recording studio which featured an IBC mixing console originally owned by Joe Meek, as he was recorded by him in the mid-60s with his band The Millionaires.

In autumn 1968, Cliff placed an order with Huddersfield-based Matamp (named after founder Mat Mathias) to make some 100-watt valve amps for Orange to Cliffs design. The manufacturing plant in the United States signifies that only the US-distributed Oranges cabinets are made in the States; currently, valve amps are manufactured in England, Korea and China.

Orange amplifiers are primarily mid to low-gain valve (or vacuum tube in North America) amp heads, designed to be coupled with a matching speaker cabinet. Their most popular guitar amplifiers were the OR120, usually referred to as the "pics only" model for its use of pictures instead of text to indicate each knob's function, and the later OD120 overdrive model which was equipped with a master volume control. Most guitar amps were based on output circuitry which used the EL34 tubes popular among British manufacturers like Marshall Amplifiers and Hiwatt, and were available in the separate amp head and speaker cabinet format.