About Orange
Orange Amplification (legally Orange Music Electronic Company Ltd) was founded in London in 1968 by Clifford "Cliff" Cooper, a former TV engineer who began building his own amplifiers after suppliers refused to stock his West End instrument shop because of his age. The brand's distinctive bright-orange Tolex covering made it instantly recognizable on stage, and Orange remains headquartered in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, with Cooper still serving as chairman today, more than five decades after the company's founding.
Orange's amps reached a global audience early -- Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer of Fleetwood Mac and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin were among the first prominent players, and the sound reached an even wider audience on Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." The brand's AD15 combo won the Editor's Pick Award from Guitar Player magazine in 1999, the first time a British amplifier maker had received that recognition, and Orange's solid-state Crush series -- including the guitar and bass combos featured below -- carries that same amp voicing and CabSim-loaded headphone output down to a practice-room price.
Brand website: orangeamps.com
What Orange makes
Orange's catalog runs wider than the gear we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Crush Series (Guitar)
Solid-state practice and home combo amps with Orange's analog crunch voicing and CabSim headphone output, including the Crush 20 — featured on House of Octave
Crush Bass Series
Solid-state bass practice combos with active EQ and a sweepable parametric mid, including the Crush Bass 25 — featured on House of Octave
Rockerverb Series
High-gain tube amp heads and combos, Orange's flagship design for metal and hard rock since 2003
Terror Series
Compact tube amp heads, including the Tiny Terror, built for portable gigging power
Speaker Cabinets
Guitar and bass cabinets built to match the Rockerverb, Terror, and Crush amp lines
Effects Pedals
Analog guitar effects pedals sold alongside the amp lineup
Why we recognized Orange
The House of Octave Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose gear consistently stands out in our player-tested category guides. Orange earned it on the strength of the products below, judged the same way every product on this site is: assessed on build, tone, and playability, weighed against what players actually report over years of use, and ranked on merit.
Orange gear we rated highly
Orange Crush 20
Orange's dirty channel delivers a thick, saturated analog crunch that many players prefer to modeled distortion, shaped entirely by hand via a real three-band EQ and your guitar's volume knob. Its CabSim-loaded headphone output is voiced to sound like a mic'd cabinet, so silent practice sounds far more realistic than the thin buzz most analog amps give through headphones, and it carries Orange's iconic look and road-tough build.
Read the 9 Best Guitar Amps of 2026 (Every Budget, Practice to Gigging) guide →
Orange Crush Bass 25
The Crush Bass 25 pairs an active three-band EQ with a sweepable parametric mid, letting you hunt down the exact frequency where your bass honks or disappears -- a level of tone control usually reserved for amps well above this size. Its blend control mixes clean and overdriven signal rather than replacing one with the other, keeping the fundamental low end intact under the grind, and its CabSim-loaded headphone output and built-in chromatic tuner round out a genuinely professional-feeling practice amp.
Read the 10 Best Bass Amps of 2026 (Practice, Home, and Gigging) guide →What earned Orange the recognition
- Founded in 1968 in London by Cliff Cooper and still headquartered in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England -- one of the longest continuously running independent amp builders in the UK
- Instantly recognizable for its bright orange Tolex covering and warm analog voicing, carried early by Jimmy Page, Peter Green, and Stevie Wonder's "Superstition"
- The AD15 combo won Guitar Player magazine's Editor's Pick Award in 1999, the first time a British amplifier maker received that recognition
- Two Orange combos earned places among our top picks: the Crush 20 in our guitar amp testing and the Crush Bass 25 in our bass amp testing
- The Crush Bass 25's active 3-band EQ plus sweepable parametric mid and CabSim-loaded headphone output stood out in our testing as control usually reserved for amps well above its size