This is the Orange Box, it’s a portable bluetooth speaker developed by the Orange Music Electronic Company – one of the most famous and respected guitar amp companies in history.
Orange amps have been used by some of the most celebrated musicians of all time, including Jimmy Page, John Lennon, Keith Richards, James Brown, and Eric Clapton. The Orange Box was designed to bring the company’s signature sound to the portable speaker space.
This is the Orange Box, it’s a portable bluetooth speaker developed by the Orange Music Electronic Company – one of the most famous and respected guitar amp companies in history.
History Speedrun: The Orange Music Electronic Company
Orange, officially known as the Orange Music Electronic Company, was founded in 1968 by musician and electronics designer Cliff Cooper in London. Cooper had borrowed £50 to open a musical instrument shop and recording studio in London’s West End, but difficulty obtaining new stock led the store to deal exclusively in second-hand equipment at first.
Eventually these supply struggles drove Cooper to design and build his own amplifiers. The first Orange-branded amps were produced by Mat Mathias’ company Radio Craft in Huddersfield in late 1968.
Orange picked up rapid credibility thanks to a series of high-profile adopters – these included Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac who was an avid early user. The amps were also famously used on Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” which brought Orange worldwide recognition.
Other early fans included Jimmy Page, John Lennon, Keith Richards, James Brown, and Eric Clapton. The early 1970s saw the release of the iconic “Pics Only” models, which used symbols instead of text on their control panels and established what became known as the signature “Orange sound.”
Orange amps have been used by some of the most celebrated musicians in history, including Jimmy Page, John Lennon, Keith Richards, James Brown, and Eric Clapton. The Orange Box now brings the company’s signature sound to the portable speaker space. Image courtesy of Orange.
Large-scale production ceased in 1978 and Cooper spent the 1980s building limited numbers of amps to order, all by hand. A licensing deal with Gibson in the early 1990s proved unsuccessful, but after Cooper regained control of the brand, it found new success with amps like the AD30 in 1998, the Rockerverb in 2003, and the beloved Tiny Terror in 2006. Today, artists like Slipknot, Mastodon, IDLES, Turnstile, and Marcus King all rely on Orange amps.
Beyond guitar amps, Orange has expanded their product line significantly, seeking new lines of revenue to ensure company survival. They now make turntables, hi-fi systems, headphones, and Bluetooth speakers.
They explain that their Orange Box speaker line brings decades of amp-building expertise into the consumer audio sector, and the portable Orange Box has a three-speaker configuration powered by dedicated Class D and Class A/B analog amplifiers, Bluetooth 5.0, and up to 15 hours of battery life.
The Orange Box Portable Bluetooth Speaker
This is the Orange Box Portable Bluetooth Speaker, internally it contains three speakers including one 4″ bass driver and two 2″ tweeters which are all powered by dedicated amps. This set up gives the unit a wide, balanced sound that’s rich in mids, controlled in the lows, and detailed up top.
This is the Orange Box Portable Bluetooth Speaker, internally it contains three speakers including one 4″ bass driver and two 2″ tweeters which are all powered by dedicated amps. This set up gives the unit a wide, balanced sound that’s rich in mids, controlled in the lows, and detailed up top.
It has an overload light, which illuminates when your input signal is too strong, giving you a clear warning before distortion kicks in. It also has full Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity and a rechargeable battery gives 15 hours of playback on a single charge.
The Orange Box is now available on the official Orange Amazon store here, it weighs in at 3 kgs or 6.62 lbs, and it measures in at 28cm × 17.5cm × 17cm (11.02″ × 6.9″ × 6.69″).
Images courtesy of Orange
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