Guitar Gear Advice?

[adam_c]

okay, i need some advice. i have a chance to trade an egnater renegade guitar head for an orange dual terror head. my egnater has blown tubes ($200 fix or so) and the orange dual terror is perfectly working. the dual terror has a mercury transformer and ruby tubes in it (more gain) i play pop punk/punk rock music and was really considering doing the trade. let me know what you think!

in my eyes the only thing that the egnater has over the orange is more wattage (but that doesn't really matter considering you get mic'd to play shows) and its more versatile (but again, i play pop punk/punk rock music, so i don't need a ton of control over my sound)

oh and i don't know if this matters but i play out of a marshall 412 cab.

[Royal Hijinx]

I would prefer an Orange head over the Egnater. Rolling back your volume will clean it up enough for what you are doing.

Also, the lower wattage will allow you to drive it harder for a better sound. I think a lot of folks think that more watts are better, but with that comes more head room, and you have to crank the amp too loud to get the sweet spot. If you play jazz, headroom is great, if you play rock, dialing back the watts and letting the pre-amp drive the tubes harder yields, IMO, a smoother sound.

[adam_c]

see that's what i was thinking too. i think orange/marshall tone (with the new transformer and tubes you can push a JCM sound) will fit my style a lot better! thanks!

[XzX_Patrick_XzX]

Jinx nailed it. I most definitely would do the trade. Nothing like that overdriven orange sound.

[AK907]

I would prefer an Orange head over the Egnater. Rolling back your volume will clean it up enough for what you are doing.

Also, the lower wattage will allow you to drive it harder for a better sound. I think a lot of folks think that more watts are better, but with that comes more head room, and you have to crank the amp too loud to get the sweet spot. If you play jazz, headroom is great, if you play rock, dialing back the watts and letting the pre-amp drive the tubes harder yields, IMO, a smoother sound.

Yup. My thoughts exactly.

That Orange is far superior in all aspects of the tone department I think.

[patientz3ro]

It really depends on how you're getting your tone, if the amps are master volume, whether you're using a distortion/OD pedal... If you're getting most of your distorted tone from a pedal, it's not as critical. If you're used to driving the amp for distortion, a lower wattage amp will allow you to get the amp to break up at lower volume whereas a higher wattage head will give you more headroom but less distortion. Also keep in mind that a higher wattage head with a master volume will allow you to crank the preamp tubes into distortion at lower volume, but if you want the power tubes to break up, you're still going to have to crank the master volume up. IMO power tube distortion sounds smoother and more organic than preamp distortion on its own.