Orange Amps debuts OBC Series Bass Cabinets ft. Celestion PULSE XL Speakers

Since its inception in 1968, the Orange brand has become synonymous with rich, complex tone and premium build quality in guitar and bass amplification. Adopted early on by Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Wonder — who deployed an Orange amp to achieve his signature Clavinet keyboard sound — the manufactory continues to release industry-leading heads, cabinets, and combo amps of distinction.

During their entire tenure, Orange have relied on Celestion speakers, the company celebrating 100 years of excellence in loudspeaker design in 2024, as the foundation of their tone and reliability. The long-time partnership between Celestion and Orange continues in the new Orange OBC115C, OBC410HC, and OBC810C cabinets for bass guitar, employing Celestion’s PULSE XL drivers: the 15.25 in the15-inch OBC115C, and the 10.20 in the multi-speaker OBC 410C and 810C.

In this interview, Orange Founder Cliff Cooper and engineer Adrian Emsley weigh in on over half a century of partnering with Celestion to produce the world’s most coveted amplifiers, and on why the PULSE XL was best suited to their new bass cabinets…

What differentiates Orange in the landscape of great British amps?

Cliff Cooper: Well, they certainly have a sound. It’s the sound of the transformers as well as the tubes. I would characterise overall as more of a round sound, with more harmonics, as compared with the other British brands with which you may be familiar. In the beginning and to this day, I also think they’re beautifully made. It’s a pleasure to look inside one. I also would say they’re quite good value for money.

Cliff, what was your own path into becoming a musician?

CC: Around 18 years old, I initially joined a skiffle group! [Skiffle is an American folk music genre known for inexpensive and homemade instruments such as washboard, kazoo, and harmonica]. I actually played an upright bass consisting of a barrel and a broomstick with a single string. Not long after I was able to join more professional bands and afford a bass guitar and amplifier. But skiffle was really my introduction to music.

The legendary audio engineer Joe Meek participated in some Orange designs, and you played in a band with him, correct?

CC: That’s right. The band was called The Millionaires, and I played bass. We made a single that rose to number 12 in the charts, and Joe passed away just before the release of the follow-up single. It was after that I decided to focus on the recording studio, starting in a basement, but after that we took up residence in the West End of London. We found a derelict space and turned it into a studio. This was in fact the beginning of Orange Amps, but as a shop.

How so?

CC: I had Vox equipment. Prior to the AC30, I had a single-speaker cabinet, and I can’t recall the model of the amp head, but I thought Vox was very good. The studio included a shop space which we had been using for storage. There was a picture window we had whitewashed on the inside for privacy. But when we removed the whitewash and put some Vox amplifiers there, people wanted to buy them the same day! That is what started us on the path of buying and selling musical equipment.

Did the retail business outrun the recording studio?

CC: We got quite busy in the shop, yes. We painted the shop orange, and actually got in trouble with the local council at the time for looking ostentatious, as “civilised” colours were important at the time and most shops were black, white, or brown. It’s funny how the money we made in the shop financed the studio little by little, and we were incrementally able to buy nicer recording equipment. I don’t think we would have been able to start making amplifiers were it not for the shop. In the early days, I lived in the back of the shop, and took meals and showered at a nearby rooming house.

Did the retail shop lead to designing and selling your own amplifiers?

CC: Like many small shops, we had trouble early on getting the bigger brands to consider us registered dealers or send us equipment. I had a background in electronics and thought, “Well, let’s make our own amps and put them in the window!” We found a company to manufacture our designs. To be consistent with the shop colours, we covered them in orange. It was a classic case of necessity being the mother of invention.

What was one of your earliest designs or experiments?

CC: It was a small practice amplifier that ran on a nine-volt battery. It had an earpiece and a guitar input so you could hear yourself playing without disturbing the neighbours. I called it the CTI [Cooper Technical Industries] Pixy since it was very small. We probably sold about 50 or 60. That was my introduction to manufacturing.

What was one of Orange’s first big successes in terms of recognition?

CC: The first person to use our amps in a highly visible way was Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, then the whole band adopted Orange amps we made especially for them. Around the same time, we were lucky that the studio began to take off, and we got a lot of famous names recording there and hence being exposed to our amps — Stevie Wonder, Paul Anka, The Bee-Gees, Tom Jones… so many.

What was it like to work with Stevie Wonder?

CC: He was just so lovely. He insisted on buying it outright as we were still a small company. He recorded Superstition through an Orange amp and between him and Fleetwood Mac, that really set us up for the future. It felt amazing given our humble beginnings, and ever since, we’ve wanted to give back to musicians by ensuring that everything we make is very well constructed, components are easily accessed and replaceable, and of course… has that sound.

You mentioned the rich harmonics as a chief characteristic of Orange Amps. What is the secret behind that quality?

CC: We designed our own transformers. Most amps have three secondary windings on the upper transformer. Most of ours have eight, and even our smaller amps have five. The result is that sidebands created by transients above human hearing bounce back into the audible range in phase, where normally they’re out of phase. That, and after all this time, still using Celestion speakers!

How long have you had a relationship with Celestion?

CC: It’s over 55 years now. As I was mentioning, in the very early days we couldn’t get supplies. Celestion was an exception, but when we couldn’t get them, nothing else we tried sounded the same, nor was built with the same quality.

Adrian, how did you come to be involved with Orange Amps?

Adrian Emsley: I joined Orange in 1997. I started out in the industry as a tape op, drummer, and guitar player, then got into building one-off tube guitar amps for certain players. I also operate my own mastering house, Table of Tone Mastering.

CC: Adrian is really just the best amp designer. He’s very clever and absolutely passionate about tubes. For a time, we licensed the Orange name to Gibson in the 1990s and didn’t produce amps ourselves again until about 1997. At that point, Adrian was the one who designed a custom amp for Noel Gallagher of Oasis, which launched us into a global company once again. He also developed the 8-winding transformer I described earlier.

What were your design goals for the new OBC-115C, OBC-410C, and OBC-810C bass cabinets?

AE: We needed to update our bass cabinets, so we got a group of bass players in and did a shootout between the Eminence, LaVoce, and Celestion PULSE XL in our 8 x 10", 4 x 10", and 1 x 15" cabinets. The Celestions came out as the preference in these listening tests for all three cabinets.

CC: It didn’t come as a surprise that we were very pleased with Celestion. We like to build simple amps and cabinets, with no more than the number of components necessary to achieve the desired sound. I think they sound purer that way. Celestion speakers contribute to this because we can be sure of getting the sonics we want without over-engineering the signal path.

How did the PULSE XL loudspeakers best serve you on this project?

AE: Bass cabinets with multi-speaker configurations apply more damping to each other when wired in parallel, which is why we use the 32-ohm versions of the PULSE XL in the 10-inch cabinets. This results in the cabinet staying cleaner at higher volume. In general, Celestion drivers have a lot of sonic detail, along with a smooth and musical breakup. This has been the case since the original G12 alnico, right up to the current Vintage 30.

Are there other upcoming or recent Orange projects on which you’re excited to be working with Celestion?

CC: You know the guitarist Orianthi, who’s a solo artist and played with Michael Jackson some years ago? We have a signature amp called the Oriverb, designed in collaboration with her. Its starting point was our Rockerverb 50 and interestingly, it’s not orange. It’s wrapped in a white embossed Tolex.

AE: This is a combo amp with selectable output power [25 or 50 watts]. We went with a 2 x 10” configuration and selected Celestion Neo Creambacks with neodymium magnets. These are light in mass but produce tone on par with far heavier ceramic-magnet speakers.

What are some of your favourite things about dealing with Celestion as a company?

AE: Over the years, it’s been great to be able to give feedback on some Celestion designs, then receive new samples. One speaker I wanted to be perfect was the 10-inch Gold alnico, and it is. In my opinion it’s the best sounding guitar speaker on the planet right now.

CC: Celestion is a legend in the music equipment business. They know everything about amps, want the companies who use their drivers to succeed, and are so helpful. They’re simply lovely to work with. There’s not much more to say than that!

Is there anything people should know about Orange beyond it being a “high-end guitar and bass amp” manufacturer?

CC: We have a line called Orange Essentials, which you don’t need to play guitar or bass to benefit from. It includes such things as a Bluetooth speaker [Orange Box], a hi-fi desktop speaker system [Pyramid], headphones, and more. So, you don’t need a gig on Top of the Pops to have a bit of Orange in your daily life!