Cabinet For New Orange Head

there's nothing special about the open backed Orange cabs, the secret sauce of an orange cab is the closed back designs, especially the 4x12s. these days they come with vintage 30s but the real orange sound was mid powered fanes (cant get them anymore) or heavy magnet celestions, specifically the G12H30 (which is reissued in 2 versions, upgraded as an H magnet creamback and cloned by everyone from Weber to WGS... its a classic). I would get a small tube head like a used tiny terror etc and get a generic open back cab for a lot less than a used orange costs.

If you are going to go solid state, roland's blues cube combos sound way more like a tube amp than the crush series does.... but seriously, get a tube amp and a cheap cab wth great speakers instead of a solid state head and the pricey brand-name cab with the ubiquitous V30 (the V30 ain't a abd speaker and it cuts a loud band well, but the new ones don't sound as good as the 80s ones and they are NOT versatile, nor are they suited to every enclosure, they prefer a closed back, trust me).

Stagecraft, Avatar, Lopo, Sourmah etc

it depends, the lows will in general be thumpy and focused in a closed back but the sound is very directional whereas an open back diffuses well thru the venue but has more phase cancellation in the low end and will therefore have less chest thump even if you gun the bass up pretty high at the amp, but the top end will generally be a lot more sparkly and less piercing... but its speaker dependent too, throwing a bass cone celestion design or a JBL/EV/Altec into an open back cab will usally give you some tight thump wherease a peaky speaker like a vintage 30 will sound more even in a closed back... and then there's the question of front and rear loading in both cabs... generally with similarly efficient speakers a closed back will sound louder on stage but quieter everywhere in the venue that's off axis from it whereas the open back cab will sound a lot less loud out font but will sound more even as you walk off axis from the cones allowing you to rely less on your floor monitors while still maintaining reasonable stage volumes to appease those pesky soundmen

keep in mind many heavy bands have used the ac30 open back combo at full tilt from Queen to Stone Temple Pilots and even Foo Fighters, so there's no rule here that you need a raging stack to rock hard... I have had marshall stacks, I have used ac30s and fender combos.... ahrd rockin' is more about turning it up loud and proud and playing with attitude...

can you buy the head first and borrow some cabinets with different construction and speakers to get a feel for what projects your sound the way you imagine it? For my own part I prefer a mix these days, I have the ac30 combos and a couple heads, a front loading sealed 2x12 and a rear loading marshall/fender style 2x12 and I like to run one of each if I can get away with it volume wise... in my main ac30 I use a blue alnico and a bass cone H30, in my sealed cab I have a pair of 80s G12L celestions and in my other closed back I have an old fane 50 watter and a WGS invader (50 watt greenback type)... I jimmied around a lot of different speakers in those cabs to find the best mixes to my ear and I have a stash of alternate speakers in various wattages and efficiencies in case I change my mind and I'll just change them out on a whim sometimes because there really is no BEST sound.

If you want a surefire setup try a closed back rear-loading cab (marshalls tyle) with a pair of heavy magnet creambacks, it will be loud but balanced and sweet with a solid 100+ watt handling. Good all arounder.... if you decide to go open back the lead cone H magnet speakers work well in open back too... if you wanna go cheaper than celestion the WGS reaper series is a great alternative, the reaper HP is a great speaker that goes toe to toe with the creamback. If you want a less aggressive fane-style speaker (hiwatt, early 70s orange sound) consider the emi tonker or tonkerlite.

Then there's American style speakers, but you probably want a british flavor with a british head.

There's also different porting options out there from Thiele cabs to football backs, tuned bass ports on the front to the Hiwatt rear slot... all have a sound

You gotta try some stuff... try to buy from guys with a return policy in case you hate what you are hearing after the honeymoon wears off.

I think Stagecraft offers a convertible back at a slight upcharge, then your cab can be vox style and marshall style and you can hear the difference just by removing some screws.

when I was touring the big 500+ seat venues I always used at least 2 half stacks with a mix of oversized marshall and mesa 4x12s, 80s marshall 4x10s and/or marshall 1960 cabs to spread my sound around (it also looked cool) but I didn't play insanely loud for the size of those stages, I was actually once asked by the soundman to turn up at the Trocadero here in Philly, dude wanted to really hear my old superlead push my greenbacks and he really did a great mix around my massive volume... and yes, they always miced at least 2 of my cabs

anyway, I would get kick, snare and bass in my monitor and rely on my stage volume to hear myself (if you need vocal then you don't rehearse enough), though it was more 'feel it' most of the time, however the extra bit of stage volume and dispersion allowed me to 'play the amps' more than if I had a bunch of myself in the wedges and turned my amps down... I would also angle all the cabs out towards the sides of the stage about 30 to 45 degrees to offset the directionality of closed backs... as the venues got smaller I started going back to AC30s over marshall superleads and dual showmans as my big rig was overkill even with smaller/less cabs... you really want to scale the rig to the venues you usually play so you can push everything into rock territory from input to speakers, attenuating anywhere will compromise some aspect of the sound, either your ability to sustain into feedback or your overall compression, overdrive voicing etc etc... your rig is a system that you tune in to respond to your playing nuances and if you fiddle with any component too much it may give you grief during the set