Orange Crush Mini

First I will say I bought this a bit in the dark; Very few reviews available; Good ones but failing to describe the full characteristics of this amp. Nobody talks about the clean sounds!!! I have a few 4x12s cabs., 2x12s. 1x12s (etc.) and valve amps, so I played it trough my cabs, and compared it to good valve heads. This little orange has fantastic and loud clean sounds: From spanking clean to all shades of warm cleans, from distinctive to warm. From Jazz neck pickup warm and tasty 60s Jazz to modern Jazz like clear. To spanking neck strat clean, to tele country (If u add a comp, pedal u r there!), and all sorts of cleans u can imagine. AND IS DAMN LOUD, Cant really delivers spanking clean to play with acoustic drummer, but below that It has clean volume to annoy neighbors.
So I got loud and crystal clear cleans, or overdrivy warm cleans, always classic, either trough 4x12s or 2x12s with single coils. They r not Fender or voxy, but not lesser, just great classic analog Orange clean sounds. How good u ask? Very good. If u really want that valve compression 100%, and u r a purist, this maybe not be for u, but It can easily pass as valve driven sounds. I have valve amps to record with, and I will record with this Crush Mini. May motto is not how valve it sounds, but how good, and this small amp can sound as good or better then many valve amps. I guess the fewer wattage is great here because u can overdrive it at more moderate volume, and to play and record at home this is important. Good tone and not volume! I wish more makers would introduce small trans and valve valve heads with lower wattage. This orangy is a SERIOUS tone machine, addictive and flexible. So dont think becouse of the wattage It cant deliver cleans! In overdrive It has the classic Orange overdrive, and again can be loud or bedroom level. Turning down the volume, you can play late at night trough a 4x12 with good sound. Im not reviewing this amp for guitar practice or as a combo, is ok for that I guess, but just search elsewhere, Im reviewing it as a head to use with cabs! From the manual, u can use it for 8ohm or above: Whit my Orange PPC4x12 with V30s I could not believe how fatty, tasty, It sounded... Back off the tone know on the amp If u play with singles, or open it If u play with humbuckers and u will have great fat overdrive tones. I had to give the guitar to a friend and I stood in disbelief for 30 minutes, just listening this amp... Everybody loves it for the sounds, either cleans or overdriven. U can play all sort of classic overdrive sounds, and they r all great. For solos I would use some boosters or overdrives, or u can use the volume for this depending on the style u go for. With pedals u can have more modern metal sounds, or u can turn back the gain and use pedals for different overdrives or distortions, and this is specially true If u want to use reverb or delay, as they will have to be placed after your overdrive/distortions pedals, with the gain back out because It dont have effects loop. I wish Orange would launch this as a head with effects loop, no tuner or phones, and no speaker and tuner! But for what it is, is great, and If u want to play/record at home and moderate volumes, and u own some good cab(s), or need to record at decent volumes, well, this can be a very serious amp. Dont come with power supply, and u will have to spend a bit of coin on a decent one as the battery will not last for consistent use. I use a Boss because with one Ispot it made noise, for sure the Boss is the best power supply. It is a bargain for the tones u can take out of this thing. I have to say that the Micro Terror is much louder but only better If u need loud practicing or live playing volumes. For tone diversity, and quality, with cabs, is unreal value.

I looked for a long time for a good mini practice amp, and due to the size, my expectations were fairly low. However, I was quite disappointed in this amp's performance and I returned it after testing it with several guitars and finding similar results with all of them.

I mostly play clean, and part of the reason I was interested in this amp was that several reviews praised the clean sound. YouTube demos also showed off the nice cleans. I'm not sure how they achieved that; in my experience it was impossible to get a good clean sound out of it. First, you ALWAYS need some amount of gain on the amp, so it'll never be completely "clean". The user manual also states that the gain and volume knobs must both be turned up past zero to make any sound.

So ideally, to get a good clean sound, you'd have the gain low and the volume higher. Well, that results in a lot of static hiss. If you raise the gain and lower the volume, it starts to distort. It's just not possible to get a good clean sound out of it.

Even so, the distorted/overdriven sound was not great either. It sounded clipped and crushed (not in a good way).

On the plus side, the build quality is good and the amp is quite cute. But the sound just didn't do it for me.

I use this tiny amplifier at home for practicing with an acoustic or electric guitar, with another instrument (other person playing bass guitar) and for writing music. I would not think it could be used in the practice room because of the low wattage.

Volume is enough and the controls are just enough, although it overdrives a bit if you want a bit more volume, as gain control has to be adjusted higher in order to get more volume.

I thing it is a great advantage this amp can be used with 9V battery or pluged into the wall.

One disavantage is the sound is quite like a "radio" kind of sound because the small size; but it can be an advantage if you like that effect. The only comparison I can provide in the same category is with the Marshall MS-2 mini amp, and Orange one sound better.

I once enjoyed the combination of this little amp with an acoustic guitar, as you can mix the acoustic sound of the guitar with the amp signal and even use effects, like tremolo and reverb.

Overall this amp is very well constructed and usefull if you need your guitar to sound to practice or have fun.