The large Evaluation: Benson Germanium Enhance

If we judged pedals on knobs per pound, the Benson Germanium Enhance could be getting three out of 10. Fortunately, we don’t — as a result of tweakability isn’t all the things, and this little green tone machine proves it.

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There’s an interesting story behind the Germanium Boost, made in Portland, Oregon, by one in every of America’s most revered boutique amp builders. And that story begins with the Benson Germanium Fuzz, which gained a rare 10/10 rating from Guitar.com final year.

Well, no, truly it doesn’t. It begins with an concept that was rejected before that machine even got here into existence: a voltage-managed error correction circuit. This was one thing Benson tried using to counteract the infamous flakiness of germanium, before settling as an alternative on temperature management.

Clearly, in the context of fuzz, that proved to be a greater than satisfactory answer; however for a clean increase utilizing the same kind of transistors, the once-rejected error correction methodology apparently works higher. The end result, in concept, ought to be all of the tonal sweetness of germanium with not one of the instability.

It hardly needs saying that this is an outrageously chic-wanting unit, housing its goodies in a darkish inexperienced folded steel enclosure with simply sufficient room on top for that one level management plus a footswitch and a lime-inexperienced LED.

In use

Shall we start with the increase stage set to zero and see how it matches up to our bypass sign? No, we shan’t, as a result of that brings silence — every little thing on the left facet of the dial is actually cutting the output, with unity acquire arriving somewhere across the number five.

With the levels matched up we don’t hear much distinction in tone, but closer consideration reveals a distinct softening of the higher midrange, resulting in a refined opening up of the treble response. It feels just a little just like the impact of placing a uncooked guitar monitor via a very nice studio EQ to make it sound, effectively, simply better.

That enhancement becomes less apparent as we flip up the increase, but even at close to most shunt levels there remains an element of scooping — enough to make our trusty Xotic EP Booster sound ever so slightly coarse as compared. Benson doesn’t state a decibel limit but it surely seems like a decent match for the Xotic’s 20dB; the only draw back is that it brings a teeny bit extra background hiss.

By the way, if you’ve seen the warning on the Benson webpage that it takes 10 seconds for the correction circuit to bias the transistor correctly, don’t fear — this doesn’t occur each time you stomp on the bypass swap. In truth the one manner to hear this phenomenon is to unplug the ability then plug it again in, and listen because the crackling turns gradually into pure guitar tone, like a battery dying in reverse.

So, can a one-knob pedal be price £199? Nicely, don’t purchase the Benson preis germanium Increase expecting to be blown away by a dramatic transformation in your sound… but by all means do buy it if you’re a hardcore tonehound looking for marginal features. What this system lacks in knobs, it greater than makes up for in luxury-level finesse.