Orange Amps Orange Box Review
Orange Amps takes a page of Marshall's book with its first wireless speaker
Verdict
Orange Amps’ first Bluetooth speaker is a beautifully designed, great-sounding effort, but one that feels a little old-fashioned
Pros
- Lovely design
- Great sound
- Handy EQ controls
Cons
- Not massively portable for a portable speaker
- No USB charging
- No waterproofing
Availability
- UKRRP: £299
- USARRP: $299
- EuropeTBC
- CanadaTBC
- AustraliaTBC
Key Features
- Bluetooth 5.0Stable wireless connection
- 15-hour battery lifeLasts a long time between charges
- Carry handleEasy to move around
Introduction
Marshall has had great success with its Bluetooth speakers made to look like mini guitar amplifiers, so it’s no great surprise that fellow amp-maker Orange has decided to get in on the act as well.
The British company, which was formed in London in the late 1960s, can count everyone from Jimmy Page to Mastodon and Stevie Wonder to Slipknot among its endorsees, so there’s no disputing its musical pedigree – but what makes a good guitar amp doesn’t necessarily make a good wireless speaker.
Does the Orange Box give Marshall a reason to worry?
Design
- Eye-catching looks
- Chunky old-school controls
- Fairly heavy
Orange’s amps are almost as iconic as Marshall’s, so it would be crazy not to borrow heavily from what makes them so recognisable.
That means you get the same vinyl-based Tolex material covering the wooden chassis, three chunky black control knobs on top next to a satisfyingly clicky power switch and an orange power light that looks like a tiny Crystal Maze dome, and the coat-of-arms-style logo in the middle of the acoustically transparent basket weave mesh on the front. Aesthetically, it’s an absolute delight. It feels solidly made, too.
There’s a strap included in the box, which is certainly handy for carrying it from room to room, but at 3kg and about the size of a two-slice toaster it’s not the kind of speaker you’d want to chuck in a rucksack for a long weekend away. There is a carry bag available for £50, but style-wise it doesn’t live up to the speaker’s general vibe. It looks more like something you’d lug a camera around in.
The Orange Box is also available in black, but I’m not going to waste words explaining why choosing that one would be completely unforgivable.
If you’re of the sustainable outlook, a purchase of the Orange Box comes with a right to repair, with Orange pledging to make “stock and replacement parts” continuously available into 2030s. This covers spare cables, straps, and rechargeable batteries.
Features
- Bluetooth 5.0
- 3.5mm socket
- Decent battery life
Features-wise the Orange Box is almost as retro as it looks.
It uses Bluetooth 5.0, and the range is good, although for some reason my iPhone identified it as a car and asked if I wanted to sync my contacts with it the first time I connected.
It does support aptX streaming, but there’s no Bluetooth multipoint, so you can’t have multiple devices connected at once; there’s no option to connect it to a second Orange Box and create a stereo pair; and there’s no accompanying app for fiddling with the EQ or updating its software.
There’s no built-in mic so it’s not ideal when your phone rings, and that means there’s no support for a voice assistant either. Perhaps these are features that you don’t consider important when it comes to picking a portable speaker, but it does make the Orange Box feel a little dated.
It’s harder to ignore the fact that there’s no IP rating. Orange’s website says “something this light and compact begs to be taken on a trip”, but whether you agree with that statement or not, the Orange Box’s lack of any waterproofing might make you think twice about taking it anywhere that you can’t guarantee it’ll stay dry.
There is a 3.5mm port, though, with an old-school coiled aux cable included in the box, which feels rather fitting, even if the necessary output is increasingly hard to find on phones these days.
Orange reckons the 2600mAh battery inside should last around 15 hours between each three-hour charge, but you’ll only hit that if you listen on very low volumes. Set at 50% I got just under 12.5 hours out of it before it needed to be plugged in, which is still decent enough.
A red light on top flashes when the battery starts to get low, and it gives you plenty of warning, but there’s no auto shut-off feature if you leave it without anything playing for a while, so you do have to be careful not to leave it on and accidentally drain the battery.
It comes with a fairly hefty 19.5V/3A charger, so you can’t just plug it in using the nearest USB cable, which is a little inconvenient. Considering it’s not the most portable of portable speakers, though, battery life probably isn’t a deal breaker for most people.
This feels like the kind of product that spends most of its time sitting in the same place, with only occasional excursions to other rooms or out into the garden, but it’s still a restriction to be aware of before you decide to buy one.
Sound Quality
- Clear, natural sound
- Weighty bass
The Orange Box contains a 30-watt Class D amp for the 4in bass driver and twin 10W A/B analogue amplifiers to drive a pair of 2-inch high-frequency drivers, so while it’s not got the same kind of power as one of Orange’s amps, it certainly has enough oomph to bother the neighbours if you crank it right up.
Play Quasimoto’s Catchin’ the Vibe and its head-nodding bass line is perhaps a little much, particularly if you push the volume up towards the maximum. That causes a little warning light to flash, letting you know that you’re in danger of damaging the drivers, but even then it never showed any signs of distorting.
For many other speakers an overpowering low end would be a problem, but the Orange Box has knobs on top that let you adjust the bass and treble easily, so you can tweak it on-the-fly depending on what you’re listening to. Some people might find that a little too labour intensive, but I’d much prefer that to a speaker that only gets on with certain types of music.
I found it necessary to knock the bass down a stop or two with some other tunes, but Massage Situation by Flying Lotus really comes alive thanks to its low-end heft (although I’m not sure my neighbours would agree).
Most of the time, though, you can leave both set to the 12 o’clock position and the Orange Box will deliver a clear, well-balanced, natural-sounding performance. It does a great job of separating the various instruments that fight for space on Katy Kirby’s Traffic; the sax intro on Steely Dan’s Gaucho is lovely and clear; and there’s real clarity and warmth to the guitar tone on Wilco’s Tired of Taking It Out On You.
You can’t expect the widest soundstage from a speaker of this size and with this driver setup, but the Orange Box never sounds cramped or claustrophobic.
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Should you buy it?
If you love the retro look: The Orange Box isn’t just an eye-catching colour, its design is a brilliant facsimile of the guitar amps that Orange is known for. It’s a look that’s very easy to love.
If you want something ultra portable: It might come with a strap but the Orange Box is a touch too big and heavy to be considered a truly portable speaker – and there’s no IP rating either.
Final Thoughts
Considering the Orange Box’s throwback looks it might seem a little odd to criticise it for being old-fashioned, but a Bluetooth-only speaker that isn’t particularly portable feels increasingly basic in a world of Spotify Connect and spatial audio.
Having all of your phone’s audio routed through a speaker when you’re listening to music, rather than separating it out from the notifications using a Wi-Fi-based protocol, now just seems quite basic.
The Orange Box is an incredibly likeable bit of kit, and it sounds great too, but it just feels a little out of step with the way the audio world is moving. It’s not cheap either, so while anyone who’s accepting of its limitations and smitten by its looks won’t be disappointed with their purchase, it limits its appeal to everybody else.
How we test
We test every wireless speaker we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested for more than a week
Tested with real world use
Battery test performed
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FAQs
There’s no IP rating for the Orange Box speaker, so it could suffer damage to the speaker if water/rain splashes on it.
Full specs
Jargon buster
aptX
Qualcomm’s aptX codec can support higher quality audio than Bluetooth alone.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
