Orange Micro Dark Stack - 20-watt Head and 1x8" Cabinet Reviews

Three knobs, so many sounds. Wonderful piece of kit. Thoroughly enjoy it every time I turn it on.

You won't regret buying this.

More sound than you might think! Looking for a bigger cab, but this speaker is ding what it must. Great for practice!

Such a great amp/cab for the price. Sounds amazing with nothing but a $50 reverb pedal.

Small but good tone an excellent practice amp! My go to practice amp!

I have been playing out for over 20 years. I have had a Vox AC30, Blackstar MKII and currently a Fender '68 reverb deluxe. They are all staying home now. I was skeptical when I purchased it. But I tried out at home for rehearsal and I was more than pleasantly surprised. But I was anxious to see what it could do out in the wild. Well, I gigged with it today and I am in love. I mic'd it with a Sennheiser 609 going through a Bose T8 into an L1 Model II with a 15" EV. I compete with some really heavy digital arrangements and it cut through with both the cleans and dirt perfectly. AND it took my pedals. I kept looking back wondering if the sound was really coming out of a rig that fit entirely in my backpack. I really can't say enough about it. I'm an thoroughly pleased with this purchase. Oh, Sweetwater is great, as usual!

I"m blown away one tube in this little amp roared! Super tight sounding way better than I thought

I've had this amp and cabinet for a few days now and it has exceeded my expectations in every way. I thought it would be a fun amp to play around with but I'm considering selling my large Vox 30 watt combo amp that isn't really apartment friendly. This is the first non-combo amp that I've ever bought. This amp is a perfect amp for a home recording studio or apartment practice amp. The controls are simple but you'd be surprised at the range of sounds you can achieve with it. Ease off on the gain knob and you get a nice clean tone. Crank up the gain and you'll sound like your metal heroes who play Orange amps and cabs on a much bigger scale. This amp really screams. You will not believe it until you plug in and try it.

This amp is a great way to get genuine Orange tone at a great price. The cabinet works great with this amp.
This amp is a great value and fun to play. I have yet to listen to it through headphones or connect any pedals into the FX loop.

I pair this amp with a TS9 and i got a killer combo. The amp by itself has a great tone but it felt a bit tinner than my Roland amp so I put a ts9 in front of it and now it's my go to amp. Needless to say this thing is loud, is twice as loud as I expected it to be. The main reason I bought it was because I had a boss katana 50 which was a great amp, but it gets muddy when playing with high gain, not a problem with this amp, been playing in C, B and D with lots of high gain, the amp responds pretty well

When I opened the two tiny boxes I thought oh no this one's going back. Then I plugged it in and was amazed. I was skeptical about the 8 in Cab but after plugging in my different guitars and boards I just laughed and thought this is the real deal. I have it on a wood floor so it sounds nice and BIG. It's a keeper. What's funny is I can't stop looking at it and laughing at the sound you get out of this tiny little almost toy sized head. You can see the little tube in there glowing and it's just hilarious. I love it. In this case size doesn't matter! A 2x12 cab may be in order with this little monster. Amarylis came through again checking to make sure everything was going great and she is a joy to talk to. Nice to have a reassuring person looking out for you.
The packaging was excellent, and it came very fast. Sweetwater made my day again.

I got my dark terror combo today what a great amp amd cab sounds awesome
This dark terror head is awesome very loud and the cleans are really nice

This tiny head and cabinet serves up extreme value for money. Let's get straight to it:

Pro's
20W SS power and 7AX12 Valve pre-amp dishes up a very lovely ORANGE British tone

Cleans are OK, but this Dark series is really designed for heavy distortion

The EQ is very simple - full clockwise twist and you get the scooped "rectifier" sound, or the opposite way for a more classic Scorpions, AC/DC etc.

Build quality is nothing short of exceptional as expected from ORANGE

Don't let 20W fool you, it has more than enough power to drive a 4x12 stack (however it may need to be mic'ed up if playing in a gig). For home use, its more than sufficient.

Cons (my only one con)

The 1x8 cabinet does not do this head justice. I strongly recommend upgrading to atleast a 1x12. I ran the head through a Marshall 1936 Vintage 2x12...all I can say is that everyone was blown away with the tone and shear power .

As always, Sweetwater is my # 1 go to and they are the best in the music industry. Sweetwater is loving and caring for our musicians !! My sales engineer Andrew Teeple always gives me shoppers delight with his excellent service and advice ! Cheers !

The amp head came in first, connected it into my Mesa Boogie 4x12 cab and was blown away. Made me almost second guess about having a Dual Rectifier. But I was quite impressed. The cab came in a few days later, opened the box in the car and the thing was so small, I didn't think it was gonna be able to handle what came out of the Mesa cab, no way. Well I got home earlier and connected it up and played, well you blew me away twice in a row! This thing sounds really nice is all I have to say...

I follow Orange on instagram and the day they posted a pic of this amp to announce it, I knew I needed one! I called Bob Furlong the next day to order one! On a side note, I have to say that Sweetwater absolutely has the best customer service out of any company that I know. Most people would order online to make it quick and easy but I prefer to call just to get a chance to talk to Bob. I have had Bob as my sales person for over 5 yrs and he has been with me through the journey of finding the right gear for me. Back to the amp now. I mainly play at home and church with a fairly silent stage so amps have been a battle. I have used several multieffect type pedals like the sansamp fly rig5 and the zoom G3 just to work with the situation but, I really love tube amps so I was never happy. Most recently I had a Blackstar HT1 which is an awesome amp but with the lack of headroom, it gets very difficult to run reverbs and delays into it without it getting really fuzzy sounding. The micro dark is perfect in so many ways for what I needed because of the effects loop and the fact that it is a hybrid amp. As most people that are familiar with tube amps know, you get different sounds at different volumes because the output tubes are getting pushed harder. With the micro dark, you get an awesome saturated tube preamp sound and then amplify it with a solid state power amp so it is very consistent. You don't have to set the volume high to get a good tone which is good for bedroom or silent stage situations. Part of what really sold me on this is the effects loop. I have been playing for over 20 years so I am kind of old school and don't like pedalboards or tons of pedals but also don't like the poor quality tone you get with some multieffects. So, with the effects loop, I hook up a zoom ms70cdr to get all the effects I need and it doesn't kill the original tone. I actually a/b'd the amp with the pedal in the effects loop and without it and I could not notice an audible change in the original tone. But wait, there is more! The other thing I needed was an amp that would not only accommodate my need for a simple setup with an effects loop and low volume for a silent stage, but that would also have the ability to be used in a venue setting. This amp gets loud! I was shocked by the volume I got even at 12 o'clock. It can be used with or larger cabinet or you can use the cab sim through a PA. This is really an all around perfect amp for me and I hope that it is for someone else too! Thanks Sweetwater!

The first head had a gassy/noisy 12AX7A. Sweetwater sent me the return label with the replacement amp. Truly great service. This little 20 watt hybrid is a great match for the sealed 8-inch cabinet. It'd be tres cool for Orange to offer a 2X8 cab. The inserts/effects loop functions nominally. The overall tone of this amp is just amazing. I am seriously contemplating a second cabinet. I use mine with a MIM Tele and it just dances really neat. Particularly beginning in the '90's, maintaining a vacuum tube amplifier has become increasingly difficult. I am glad Orange is dealing with reality, and then doing the great job of it. Vacuum tubes have gone the way of the buggy whip. Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETS) do the deed although the circuit values need changing. The Micro Dark is a pretty good example of lower heat and higher reliability while maintaining great tone. This amp could be a classic. I truly enjoy playing it.

I got this in the mail, and at first, when it was sitting all nice like the picture on my kitchen table, I was thinking. "Man this thing is smaller than I thought." But as soon as I plugged in and started playing with the volume and gain, I was amazed. I started with my Gibson Thunder horse Explorer, and I haven't put it down yet. This amp gets a really nice chime clean, but you can also add a little bit of grit to it, making it really fuzzy for a nice vintage tone. Once you start adding gain, it becomes more and more of a monster. Playing around with your guitar and the amps Shape and Gain knobs, you can get virtually almost any sound from a good classic clean, to a nice thick distortion. This is great for classic rock and I found myself playing a lot of Black Sabbath, Jimmy Page, Hendrix and even some early Metallica. Its quite the beast. Yes you can get metal tones but its not as great as I preferred. Still, an amazing piece of equipment and I cant wait to get a 1x12 Black Orange cab to gig with. Overall, this is great for home recording/gigging and loud enough to keep up with a small rehearsal, I mean this thing really got me with the sheer volume this amp can push out, a huge WHOA! factor. Match this with a few good FX pedals and you can own the stage. You cant go wrong with this one, and besides its a chance to own a unique Orange amp. Why wouldn't you get it?

For one, the portability is amazing. Super lightweight and very tiny. All of my friends have jokingly said how cute it is.

The 1x8 is decent. Perfect for just practicing.

The head is ok clean, not the best. But the reason you'd buy this little gem is for the GAIN !!!

Over-driven this thing is FLAWLESS !!!! It sounds amazing.

I took it and hooked it up to my two Mesa Rectifier 1x12's And this little amp is EQUALLY as good as my Mesa Mini Rectifier with the distortion !!! I couldn't believe the heavy tone you get out of this. This is going to be my practice amp. But it most def good enough to have as a back up head in case of an emergency at a show.

So worth the money !!! Just buy it !!!!

I bought the Micro Dark Terror with cab on a whim after I saw it listed on EBay and heard so many YouTube guitarists sing its praises of being the most metal amp on the market for its price and size. Mine just came into today and I immediately noticed that despite no matter where I had the shape know dialed into, every tone with the gain up sounds super fuzzy like the bass is going to blow the speaker up. I'm not playing at high volumes and I even turned the gain down a little and played with various shapes and tones. It could be the small cab and I'll have to play around with the gain knob a bit more, but the sound is there. I know this thing has potential, but my initial impression so far is a bit of a let down.

This amp has poor tone control, and frankly, it ends up sounding very muddy especially when paired with this speaker. I only like this because I live in a small apartment, and I don't have the space for a full-sized amp. I like that it fits nicely underneath my desk

This little guy sounds awesome plugged into a nice speaker, the better the quality of speaker the better the sound. I still use it now and then but not so much since the headphone jack quit working after 2 years of getting it. I thought about getting it fixed but I figure after, packaging, frt, parts and labor etc. I could buy a new, why bother.

The speaker is useless it blew out after 2 minutes. For the price the head unit is not worth it at all i get better sound out of a cheap peavey amp