# Klon Centaur - does it meet up to the hype?



## mrmatt1972

I just got reprimanded and had my post deleted for asking this question in a for sale thread. Since I am curious, and possibly in the market with my birthday coming up, I thought I'd ask here.

The buzz is that these are somehow the best OD ever made. What makes them so special. Are they worth the money?

Your opinions please...


----------



## Jeff Flowerday

Some comments in the following threads:

http://www.guitarscanada.com/showthread.php?9968-Klon-worth-it&highlight=klon

http://www.guitarscanada.com/showthread.php?3005-Klon&highlight=klon

http://www.guitarscanada.com/showthread.php?100-For-the-Love-of-the-Klon&highlight=klon


----------



## Jeff Flowerday

IMO, the Klon shines best at pushing an already overdriven amp or pedal to the next level. I use it as a boost more than an overdrive.

It adds the perfect amount of mids and boost to make you pop right out of the mix.

I bought mine many moons ago when they were going for a little less. I wouldn't sell it knowing I would make double my initial investment. And I haven't even been in an electric mix in years.


----------



## mhammer

If you want a pedal that has a sound of its own, you will be sorely disappointed. If you have an amp whose breakup tone gives you delicious thrills when everything aligns just right, you will NOT be disappointed.

This is a woefully misunderstood pedal. If you try and buy it from its maker, Bill Finnegan, you will receive a very helpful tutorial about what does and doesn't make it sound great. If you try and buy it from a store or off e-bay, based on "legend", you may be buying the wrong pedal. Buy from Bill, and tell him I said "Hi".

Mark Hammer


----------



## traynor_garnet

Am I allowed to respond! 

Seriously, this thing does something to the notes when used as a clean boost. It gives you this 3D sound to your tone that is hard to describe. I am only selling because I can only play VERY quietly where I live (I'm talking, headphones are better). As on OD I would rate it as "good" but doing the clean boost thing I have never heard anything like it.

I hope this isn't considered spam. I would write the same thing regardless of my sale.

TG


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## mrmatt1972

traynor_garnet said:


> Am I allowed to respond!
> 
> Seriously, this thing does something to the notes when used as a clean boost. It gives you this 3D sound to your tone that is hard to describe. I am only selling because I can only play VERY quietly where I live (I'm talking, headphones are better). As on OD I would rate it as "good" but doing the clean boost thing I have never heard anything like it.
> 
> I hope this isn't considered spam. I would write the same thing regardless of my sale.
> 
> TG


I don't consider it spam, it's what i was trying to ask in a rushed and exhausted way on your FS thread.

Matt


----------



## Rwinder

I don't think its spam, because someone thats going to drop the cash for it is not going to need to be "sold" on the pedal. The hype is so huge on this pedal that you could slander the hell out of it and someone would still buy it based on its rep... 

I have always wanted to try one but i can buy a lot of fun effects for the going rate of one of these beauties. 

I think for the most info on this pedal check thegearpage.net i think every 4th thread is a klon thread...


----------



## allthumbs56

It's one of those legendary pedals that I would love to have. Sadly the reality for me is that I'd have to be in Week 78 of my Cash For Life fantasy before my Bang-for-buck Meter would let me purchase one ........


----------



## keto

http://buildyourowntone.com/klontypeclonecircuitboard.html Build your own cheap!

not spam, no relation, have not bought or built one.


----------



## guitarman2

What I'd like to know is, is it the hype or the cost of materials and manufacturing that make this pedal worth this insane amount of money? There are many great and sought after pedals out there. What makes this one worth this much?
There were some that criticized my decision to spend $600 on high end guitar cables and although I did it for an experiment, there is a lot of validity that these high end cables are empty hype. So does this pedal fall under the same type of hype? Yeah so it does add some little bit of magic. There are many pedals out there for half the price (which is still quite expensive) that add a lot of magic.
No one can ever tell you that something is worth that much. You have to find out for your self. Thats why I decided to experiment with expensive cables. It got my curiosity to the point that I didn't care about spending the money.
Though its quite convenient for a manufacturer to hype the hell out of their product, telling you its the greatest product ever, then sets it up so that the only way you can get it is to order it. No way of trying before buying.
To be honest if I hadn't just committed to a forum member to buying an amp that I can barely afford I'd probably buy this thing just out of curiosity.


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## keto

Including box, switches, paint job, and all components, BUT WITHOUT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT BUSINESS OVERHEAD OR R&D OR BUILD TIME OR PROFIT (so often these aren't mentioned when calculating values), that pedal has roughly $45 worth of materials. So that isn't the answer


----------



## allthumbs56

keto said:


> Including box, switches, paint job, and all components, BUT WITHOUT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT BUSINESS OVERHEAD OR R&D OR BUILD TIME OR PROFIT (so often these aren't mentioned when calculating values), that pedal has roughly $45 worth of materials. So that isn't the answer


It has a paint job?


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## guitarman2

nkjanssen said:


> How much? I bought mine brand new from the manufacturer (Bill Finnigan) for $329. Is that insane? Bill seems to get blamed when guys sell gold horsey Klons on E-Bay for $900. Bill obviously doesn't get a dime of that.
> 
> 
> 
> In my experience, its the hype itself that's hyped. On TGP, there are 100x as many threads complaining about "the hype" as there are threads actually hyping the pedal. Almost without fail, every post I see by someone who actually owns a Klon is fairly level-headed. Then you get 100 guys who have never tried one complaining about how much the pedal is hyped. People claim that claims are made that I never actually see claimed. It's weird.
> 
> Bottom line - it's a really good pedal. It does what it does very well. Anyone who wants it to be something it's not will be disappointed. I could say the same thing about any number of other pedals. This kind of thing is subjective.


Ok $329 is fine. I paid that much for my Wampler hotwired. How come the seller in FS: is selling a used one for $700? Thats ridiculous. If the reason is that there is a wait when ordering the pedal, well thats just a bull shit reason for inflating the price. I ordered a Crook guitar for which there is about a 6 to 8 month wait. Yet used ones are on the internet forums or ebay for reasonably priced used prices.


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## allthumbs56

guitarman2 said:


> Ok $329 is fine. I paid that much for my Wampler hotwired. How come the seller in FS: is selling a used one for $700? Thats ridiculous. If the reason is that there is a wait when ordering the pedal, well thats just a bull shit reason for inflating the price. I ordered a Crook guitar for which there is about a 6 to 8 month wait. Yet used ones are on the internet forums or ebay for reasonably priced used prices.


Same thing happens with Tims and Timmys, Zendrives, etc

I've had a Tim and a Timmy. They fetch twice what they're worth on the secondary market. Still not THAT kind of money though. And as great as they sounded, I was happier with a FDII, OCD, SD-1, TS-9 and the cash. I'd love to own a Klon but for the money they fetch, I can have another amp, guitar, or 5 pedals.


----------



## mhammer

The website doesn't say "ever", but rather notes that he will be switching to a smaller enclosure. In past, Bill had to make the enclosures by hand. Casting proprietary enclosures certainly gave the pedal a unique aesthetic, and was part of the charm. But it cost him a fortune, raised the asking price, took up an enormous amount of time and energy, and placed limits on production because there was never any alternate source to turn to should you run out.

About a year and a half ago (or maybe it was 2-1/2, I forget), Bill called me out of the blue and asked for some assistance on implementing some small design tweaks he was considering. I was quite honoured, and though we worked on it for a while, in the end nothng we tried was feasible. He has a bit of a stubborn streak, but was always pleasant to work with. His insistence on being a bit of an iconoclast is pretty much his undong. Because he wants to make sure people who purchase the Centaur are the 8right* buyers, he spends a lot of time on the phone with prospective customers....a LOT. I must have spent easily 10-12 hours on the phone with him. Unfortunately, that takes time away from building (he handmakes them all, no Chinese factories here), and time taken from building means production and delivery delays. That, in turn, creates impatience in buyers who don't wish to wait, and inflated prices on e-bay. And that, in turn, creates anger and consumer frustration when they spend ridiculous sums for something that can never live up to "the legend" at those prices. And, as mentioned, Bill never sees a dime of those ridiculous re-sale asking prices, except for the first time he sold the pedal to someone.

As I noted, he has a bit of a stubborn streak, but it seems he is finally relenting and converting over to some form of non-proprietary box that doesn't have to cost him (and buyers) an arm and a leg, and that is always available from a supplier. I do not expect his attention to detail and quality to take a nose dive, though. You will note that Zachary Vex did pretty much the same thing with the Vexter series of pedals. Those hand-painted Fuzz Factories were lovely to look at but not every buyer wanted to look at them, or wanted to pay a premium for something that had no value to them anyways. Bill is effectively going the same route. Whether this necessitates a new layout for the board, I can't say because I don't know. My gut sense is that he could easily fit the existing layout into the sort of boxes that EHX is using for the Metal Muff, Memory Man , Riddle, Cathedral, and other 6-knobbers. The depth seems appropriate for the pot type he uses, though he may need a workaround for the dual-ganged drive pot. But again, I have no idea what he has planned. I am only surmising based on what I know of the innards of the Centaur, and what is commercially available out there. And since this is essentially Bill's only revenue stream as far as I know, the shift to a different box may only impact on production delays, rather than the actual selling price. That being said, if he is able to meet demand without forcing people to go the e-bay route, that will likely improve customer satisfaction.


----------



## guitarman2

allthumbs56 said:


> Same thing happens with Tims and Timmys, Zendrives, etc
> 
> I've had a Tim and a Timmy. They fetch twice what they're worth on the secondary market. Still not THAT kind of money though. And as great as they sounded, I was happier with a FDII, OCD, SD-1, TS-9 and the cash. I'd love to own a Klon but for the money they fetch, I can have another amp, guitar, or 5 pedals.


I will be very surprised if that klon sells. There are many excellent guitars, vintage amps and other items in the B&S, that are very fairly priced that are not selling, most likely because of this economy


----------



## hollowbody

guitarman2 said:


> Ok $329 is fine. I paid that much for my Wampler hotwired. How come the seller in FS: is selling a used one for $700? Thats ridiculous. If the reason is that there is a wait when ordering the pedal, well thats just a bull shit reason for inflating the price. I ordered a Crook guitar for which there is about a 6 to 8 month wait. Yet used ones are on the internet forums or ebay for reasonably priced used prices.


Any pedal with a long wait time gets the same treatment. Tims/Timmys are the same, so is an Echoczar or a King of Tone. These pedals are cheaper to buy if you're willing to wait, but people will pay a premium to bet one NOW.

Also, it's not the sellers that are driving up the price, Terry. It's all supply and demand. On TGP there's at least one other Klon I've seen for $650 US and flashPUNK here just bought one for the same price traynor_garnet is asking. The market determines what people are willing to pay, and right now, that's in that $700 range. We see a Timmy sell here pretty much every month or so for $200. That's the stock price for a Timmy on the used market, even though they're $129 or something new from Paul.

As for the pedal itself, I have no idea if it's worth it. I'm one of the people who'd love to get one to see, but I'm waiting for Bill to release his smaller version and then I'll get on the wait list. I do know, however, that the circuit is very unique and he must have spent ages developing and testing it before releasing, so that's worth something in and of itself. Yes the used prices are shocking, but the new price I think is commensurate with any super-boutique pedal out there.


----------



## Guest

Knowing what you've spent on cables in the past year I find this post very amusing. 



guitarman2 said:


> What I'd like to know is, is it the hype or the cost of materials and manufacturing that make this pedal worth this insane amount of money? There are many great and sought after pedals out there. What makes this one worth this much?
> There were some that criticized my decision to spend $600 on high end guitar cables and although I did it for an experiment, there is a lot of validity that these high end cables are empty hype. So does this pedal fall under the same type of hype? Yeah so it does add some little bit of magic. There are many pedals out there for half the price (which is still quite expensive) that add a lot of magic.
> No one can ever tell you that something is worth that much. You have to find out for your self. Thats why I decided to experiment with expensive cables. It got my curiosity to the point that I didn't care about spending the money.
> Though its quite convenient for a manufacturer to hype the hell out of their product, telling you its the greatest product ever, then sets it up so that the only way you can get it is to order it. No way of trying before buying.
> To be honest if I hadn't just committed to a forum member to buying an amp that I can barely afford I'd probably buy this thing just out of curiosity.


----------



## guitarman2

iaresee said:


> Knowing what you've spent on cables in the past year I find this post very amusing.



Hey I don't mind spending some money to experiment and either validate or debunk hype. But I would never had bought those cables used from someone for twice the price of new. Whats amusing about that?


----------



## Jeff Flowerday

guitarman2 said:


> Hey I don't mind spending some money to experiment and either validate or debunk hype. But I would never had bought those cables used from someone for twice the price of new. Whats amusing about that?


 
They are $700 new now, no one is selling theirs for twice as much as they worth new now. The $369 price mentioned was years ago.


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## hollowbody

guitarman2 said:


> *Though its quite convenient for a manufacturer to hype the hell out of their product, telling you its the greatest product ever,* then sets it up so that the only way you can get it is to order it. No way of trying before buying.
> To be honest if I hadn't just committed to a forum member to buying an amp that I can barely afford I'd probably buy this thing just out of curiosity.


One more thing here, Terry. The mfg isn't the one hyping this particular pedal. It's mostly guys (and girls) like us on forums. Bill is known to turn away potential customers because he doesn't think his pedal will suit their needs. He knows what it can and can't do and isn't looking to just make a buck. He builds a very small quantity and tries his best to sell them to people who will actually be able to best utilize them. I spoke with Bill earlier and he and I decided that the Klon wouldn't work for me in the application I was planning on using it in before, but now that my amps have changed a bit, I'm thinking of dropping him a line again once he starts building again.


----------



## Jeff Flowerday

nkjanssen said:


> Not true. They are not being sold at all now. I paid $329 a few years ago. I think the $369 was the most recent selling price when they stopped making them.


I assumed they were $700 because flashPunk said he ordered one and that is what it's going for now.


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## Guest

guitarman2 said:


> Hey I don't mind spending some money to experiment and either validate or debunk hype. But I would never had bought those cables used from someone for twice the price of new. Whats amusing about that?


 That value for the dollar spent is completely subjective. Some people think a pedal is worth that, some people think cables are worth that. Used or new, that's irrelevant. It's all perceived value. You, of all people, after that long thread on expensive cables, must understand that. So to question why some people think a pedal is that valuable is...amusing.


----------



## mhammer

If anything, Bill would hope to be able to bring his asking price *down*. Trouble is, given his business model, he doesn't sell enough to make ends meet if he does that. AFAIC, if he let the website do the sales job (perhaps with a suitably tailored self-scoring survey to identify whether you were the sort of person who needs one or not), instead of talking to customers, used generic boxes instead of custom cast ones (a step he has taken), and "stooped" to Chinese fabricated wave-soldered SMT boards instead of soldering through-hole parts himself, we might see a $199 Klon...but I don't think that is gonna happen.

As an aside, when he asked me to help him, he sent me two fully populated "ungooped" boards. One of them was stock, and the other had every single component socketed (And I mean EVERY component) so that it could be experimented with and compared against stock. I made myself an A/B comparison chassis so that I could setthe two units identically and use a stompswitch to go back and forth between them. He was very anxious about the state I would send the socketed board back to him in, because it had taken him several days to produce it (sorry, folks, the two boards went back, along with all the secrets). Like I say, the wait and price is a result of the way he runs his business. He's not Danelectro, and he's not Dave Barber. He's Bill. And THAT's why he deserves your support.


----------



## The Grin

Based on this vid KLON Centaur OD Vs. KLONE OD I sure as hell wouldnt pay this Klon Overdrive Pedal


----------



## Rugburn

I'm all for supporting smaller builders/makers and I love great sounding/special/magical gear, but $700 will get you a nice amp, or guitar. It's the same thing with the "Timmy". Sure it sounds great, but the 6-7 month wait coupled with the duty and shipping, makes the $50 Cool Cat TOD pretty enticing. I'm sure Paul and Bill are great guys who know tons of stuff about music and making great guitar tones, but these guys have an obligation to themselves and their potential customers to do a better job meeting demand. I'm no fan of the big brands that set up shop half-way around the world to copy/clone other folks designs, but two things strike me about these kinds of debates.

1) I'm not so sure that these designs are as unique as so many players seem to believe. Generally speaking there are only so many ways of achieving a certain effect. This isn't to say that there won't be an ultimately superior design, but there will be a lot of overlapping circuit considerations amoung the many pedals of a given type.

2) Electro-Harmonix has been making most of their pedals since the late 60's in NYC. They sell for reasonable $$, have a well respected reputation, and as far as I know, don't appear to be losing business to cheaper copies. Granted, EHX is a much bigger more established company than the two I mentioned, but that's my point.

Shawn.


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## Guest

nkjanssen said:


> mhammer is the only one here who has been given access to the Klon's design. He says it's unique. I'll trust him on that.


 +1000 to that. While the Klon may not push the fundamentals of electrical circuit design ahead by light years, it put together some fundamental concepts in some very interesting ways no one had done before. Just because it isn't patentable, doesn't mean it isn't unique, new, innovative.


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## Rugburn

nkjanssen said:


> I can't see how any manufacture, small or otherwise, _owes_ anything to a _potential_ customer other than to not misrepresent their products. Certainly nobody _owes_ me a short wait time on their product if I have the option not to buy it..


Sure, just don't bitch about people cutting your grass with cheap "clones" if you think they may have copied your designs. Otherwise you do run the risk of losing *potential customers *to larger builders that can drastically cut wait times and costs. I think the Cool Cat TOD is a perfect example of this. I don't think the "Timmy" is all that expensive, but the waiting period for one of them is over the top.




> mhammer is the only one here who has been given access to the Klon's design. He says it's unique. I'll trust him on that.


Well, I wasn't speaking directly in terms of the Klon, but this pedal was first out in 1994!! Do you think a few folks other than Mr. Hammer might have had a peek under the hood since? You know you can pay a $1000 or more for an original Uni-Vibe, but you can also buy a true-bypass, modern replica/clone for about $200. Times do change.

Shawn.


----------



## mhammer

Well if Bill knew what he had there, perhaps he might have patented it, but Bill is not an engineer. That's why he called me in the first place. Not that *I'm* an engineer (or even play one on TV; I'm a psychologist by training), but at least I have a sense of how an analog pedal does what it does, and how the stages interact. That, and apparently I have some professional integrity, or am rumoured to.

As for the design, to here Bill tell it, it was entirely empirically developed. There was really no overarching model driving the design, other than simply combining clean and dirty, and some filtering. He worked with a consulting engineer, who was unfortunately killed in a single-engine plane crash some time in the late 1990's as far as I can recall. They kept changing stuff here and there until they finally got it where they wanted.

The design is a complete house of cards, though. It's like every time-travel movie you've ever seen where one tiny thing gets changed here and it has big implications down the line. Bill would ask me "Can you get it to do X, on top of what it already does?",and if I tinkered with changing a value, or sticking something in parallel with an existing part, the end result would always be something different, and not Klon + X. Unless he was prepared to completely redesign the board layout to accommodate radical additions (something that was clearly a nonstarter), there was no way we were going to end up with the Klon that everybody knows and loves, with a bit of nuts and whipped cream on top.

Some people believe they have cloned the Klon. I have a schematic, but the schematic has all sorts of parts-value changes scrawled all over it, and Bill would tell me about additional changes over the phone. So, those who believe they have reverse engineered it, may have *a* version of it, but given Bill's penchant for 1% resistors (and changing them), it is unlikely they have THE authentic version. I certainly have no intentions of assisting anyone in "correcting" their version. Zachary Vex may have been able to let go of the Fuzz Factory and move onto other things. I honestly can't see Bill coming up with another product. So if that's his only product, then I'm sworn to secrecy for keeps.

The last time we spoke, he was going to see if he could locate another consulting engineer locally that he might be able to work with on-site. Admittedly, doing things over the phone was not the best arrangement. I don't know if the temporary hiatus for a new package reflects being able to achieve the extra stuff he wanted with the aid of another mind, or is simply a more cost-effective method to produce the product without sacrificing quality. I do wish him well though. He's a good guy with his own well-deserved reputation for integrity.


----------



## Guest

nkjanssen said:


> In fact, a design that takes known concepts and technologies and applies them in a non-obvious and useful way will often be patentable. There are very few inventions that create an entirely new category of technology. Most are advancements in existing technology.


 While that is true, it's a really hard thing to show the non-obvious part in analog electronics. It's just a field that's been discovered to death. Often the application is more unique than the implementation. As in: I took this radio transmission circuit and applied it to a guitar signal and it made my guitar go "whhhheeeeeeeeeeee". Most builders opt for obfuscation as patents are really, really hard to secure.


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## 4345567

__________


----------



## Rugburn

nkjanssen said:


> Large builders who mass produce products overseas will always have an advantage over guys who handbuild products if all you're concerned about are price and availability. For a guy who "suppports the smaller builders" and is "no fan of the big brands", it's odd that you seem to think all of the "smaller builders" should become "big brands" so as to meet their obligation to you of cheap prices and fast turnaround.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is a non-sequitur. You were saying the design was not as original as people think. Unless someone here other than mhammer has specifically examined the original Klon design, has the knowledge to interpret it, and says it's an unoriginal design, I'll stick with mhammer's assessment that there is some originality there.


My example of large builders who mass produce overseas was meant to illustrate why potential sales are as important as any you've already made. My example of Mike Mathews' EHX company is an example of a company still owned by the man who founded it and still builds most of his products in New York. They're affordable and reputable. There are others of course, but for the sake of simplicity I used EHX. There are a lot of people that talk about supporting the little guy, but I could scarcily do a better job than you did of explaining why this is rarely the case with such items at the end of the day in terms of getting their compensation . Saying "I'm not so sure these designs are as unique as so many players seem to believe" is not the same thing as*" saying the design was not as original as people think"*. Protecting your business from the bigger brands is not the same thing as becoming a big brand. However, there's a middle ground. Either you grow to some extent and..hmm...*cater* to your* customer base*, or you can cry foul when someone takes your business. I think the price of originals vs. clones is absolutely pertinent to this discusion. At some point all of these designs were "original" and "unique", but someone was able to offer what the customer wanted, and the rest is history. Not really sure where the hostility is coming from, but if you own one of these things and your happy with it, great.


Shawn.


----------

