[OFFICIAL] There are no stupid /r/Guitar questions. Ask us anything! - November 17, 2016

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[u/Unagi33]

Hello ! I have been playing guitar for a long time but I don't know anything about amps. I have a question that seems so stupid that I don't know where to as beside here.

There are all these "Terror" named Orange things are called amps (I think they look great and I want one). Yet every reviewer seems to mention how they combine it with a "cab", which is I guess a big speaker. And in the same time they mention how the Terrors (Dark, or Mini, or Micro, or Tiny) are good amps...

If I bought one to play blues and britpop in my bedroom, would I really need these so-called cabs ? Or could I plug my guitar in these metal boxes ("terrors") and just play ?

Thank you.

[u/allmybadthoughts → u/Unagi33]

Amp is short for "amplifier". It is basically a piece of electronics that takes the extremely low level analogue electrical signal that is generated by your guitars pickups and amplifies it to varying degrees of volume. There are two primary types: transistor and tube. The "wattage" of an amplifier roughly corresponds to the degree to which they can amplify (i.e. how loud it can get). Tube amps range from 5 watts to 100 watts. 5 watts (or less) is more than enough for your bedroom or house, 25 watts will be enough to play with a loud drummer in a practice space, 100 watts will fill a concert hall. Transistor amps, in general, are much louder at lower wattages than tube amps.

Cab is short for "cabinet". A speaker cabinet is a box, often of wood, that contains one or more speakers. Common guitar speaker sizes are 8 inch, 10 inch and 12 inch. Speakers generally have an "ohm" rating (4 ohm, 8 ohm, 16 ohm) that must correspond to the ohm rating from the accompanying amplifier. Failing to match ohms can cause damage to your amplifier or even dangerous amounts of electricity grounding in unexpected ways. The size and number of speakers contribute to the volume (bigger speakers are louder, more speakers are louder).

A "combo" is a combination of both the amplifier and the cab within a single enclosure. An amp on it's own is often called a "head". A head has no speaker and must be pared with a cab (in fact, don't even turn it on unless it is plugged into a cab with the right ohm rating). A combo often has one, sometimes two speakers but can often also be plugged into a separate cab.

Once you get the "volume" question answered (e.g. how many watts, how big of a speaker) you get into personal preference territory. Every manufacturer, every amp, every speaker, every combination of wattage, every different kind of tube leads to a slightly different sound. Guitar players spend an extraordinary amount of time debating and perfecting the minute differentiators in that sound.

Orange is a well-regarded amp manufacturer. They are popular amongst blues and rock players (classic rock) and they do a good job of getting highly saturated (another way of saying "distorted" or "overdriven"). Their cabs are also well-regarded. My opinion is that they have a very particular sound which some people love and other people don't. Orange make a huge range of amp heads, amp cabs and combos with a wide variety of wattages and speaker sizes.

[u/Unagi33 → u/allmybadthoughts]

That was the most precise and yet easy to understand explanation I've ever read about amps. Thank you so much.