My word.
What an absolutely delightful bit of kit.
Picked up a Rocker 15 as an upgrade from a Crush 35RT.
Can't leave it alone.
Thick, creamy, complex cleans and a gain channel that seems to do it all.
I knew I liked the Orange 'house sound', after auditioning the Crush against pricier alternatives, but this is objectively a much nicer amp.
The headroom/bedroom switch really works - I tend to run it at home on 1 watt during the day and 0.5 watts at night.
It can be done.
Orange really deserve a big pat on the back for this.
It's so much nicer at low volumes than the Crush, especially on the dirty channel.
I think this amp destroys the myth that you can't have a quality, lightweight all rounder.
I'd happily gig it, but it's so much fun at home.
Comments
It's the standard Rocker 15 1×10 combo.
I really don't think it would be a competitor to the Blues Junior in terms of tone, it's a fundamentally different sound.
The clean channel is just amazing - emphasis on upper mids but plenty of complex harmonics and overtones coming through. It would make a good jazz amp at lower volumes!
The dirty channel is very similar at low gain, becomes delightfully crunchy about 12 o'clock and increasingly filthy from there on.
It's all pretty much usable though, there's not really a bad tone in it.
Surprisingly full in the bottom end for a 10" speaker, especially on a suspended wooden floor!
I auditioned it against a Blackstar HT20II (more emphasis on the frequency extremes, cruder, scooped mids) a Marshall Origin 20 (much nicer than expected but less versatile and a bit bland).
Also tried a Laney SuperCub stack which had a wonderful old school Marshall tone, but the cab was a bit woolly and the cleans were nowhere near as pleasant.
A DSL 20 sounded one dimensional and lacked sparkle.
Yes, it can do proper metally stuff at low volume.
It's much, much better at this than the Crush 35 it replaced.
I loved the general sound of that thing, but it was a little crude in comparison.
I did consider the Rocker 32 as well, but the power switching options on the 15 along with the lack of weight make me glad I went with the smaller amp.
I went through a similar set of considerations recently. Ended up with a DSL20C, because Marshall, it was a v good price and has an aux in, which I wanted.
V impressed with it for the price, but low power mode is still 10w and a bit loud (it works better with a bit of volume).
I think the Orange Rocker 15 as more of a 'proper amp' mainly because of the price point I think. If it had an aux in I would have probably gone for that.
JJN Blackstar looks decent too. Not sure how different it is to the regular HT20 mkii. The combo has a better speaker.
I'm already looking at speaker upgrades for the DSL as it comes with a Celestion 70/80 (shrug!).
Doesn't have the bedroom/headroom switch though.
Pricing seems to be all over the place atm......
I paid £519 for mine too, that's the cheapest I've seen for ages.
Haven't seen the black 15s any cheaper than £599.
Edit: just noticed you referred to the 32 rocker. Too much juice for me!
Too heavy as well.
The black and orange 15s are the same apart from the colour. They both have the bedroom/headroom switch, so 0.5, 1, 7 or 15 watts.
The 32 has 15 or 30 watt outputs.