Tell me about the orange rockerverb 50 mkI 2x12 combo

[man-in-moon]

I have a guy trying to trade me a rockerverb mkI 50 watt combo for my helix LT. Don’t get me wrong I like the helix a lot but the lack of having orange models is a bit of a disappointment as they are my favorite amps. The amp looks to be in good shape and he says the tubes have less than 20 hours on them. He is offering it a few pedals and some cash.
I had a rockerverb 100 head years ago. But they have made several changes and I don’t know much about 6v6 tubes.

[Empty Pockets]

Re: Tell me about the orange rockerverb 50 mkI 2x12 combo

I'm obsessed with Orange amps and this might be the model that is Technically The Best even though I don't own one personally. It's on my "To get" list though.

In my humble opinion, prices dropped on Marshall DSLs and Mesa Rectifiers because this amp came out. Its DNA is still purely British and gives tons of midrange crunch but has way more low-end and delivers those Recto chugs on palm-mutes that are so important with modern heavy music. The clean channel works fine. It's not going to replace a surf rocker's Twin Reverb but it's better than a Marshall clean channel for sure.

The things people complain about with the MK I era Rockerverbs is the effects loop. I haven't experienced this first-hand but I've read lots of posts by people complaining that they wish the FX loops was more transparent, or something along those lines. As a dude who normally uses single-channel amps that don't even have FX loops, this is a total non-issue for me.

The thing that makes me want a 50w MkI more than any other variation of the Rockerverb is the 6V6 power amp. The MkII and III are alll EL34 power amps and the only difference between a 50w or 100w is whether it has two power tubes or four. The MkI delivers 50w with 4 lower-wattage tubes, giving the richness and harmonic complexity of a 100w amp at lower volume. I've never tried them side by side, but the vast majority of British tube heads have EL34s so the idea of having a different power amp just for the sake of being different is appealing to me.

I would absolutely take a reliable tube amp that sounds amazing over a digital modeler every single day of the week, now and forever. Hail satan.