Benson Amps Portable Disortion 424 MKII *Free Shipping in the US*

Trends are funny. Before chasing various levels of fidelity around Chris (and most of our staff actually) grew up using 4 track cassette recorders to make demos and even in some cases final products. So when people started talking about the distortion characteristics of those extraordinarily spartan and slow opamp designs, we developed a few ideas out. The 424 mkii channel strip has not been adapted for pedal use before as far as we know. It’s definitely our favorite of the circuits we tried...mostly owing to the dazzlingly low input impedance that can load down a guitar pickup like it owes it money. Of course, high frequencies and proper impedance bridging CAN be cool too, so we incorporated a switchable buffer circuit. And of course upped the general gain without really changing much. The results: sounds like an old 4 tracker, but more portable! It’s like a moped: simple, rattley sounding, and REALLY fun. Seriously though, the end result might surprise you with how versatile it is...the EQ is very usable and there are lots of flavors...it starts in clean boost village, travels safely all the way through the forests of distortion, and climbs fuzz mountain without breaking a sweat. Not to mention it has 18 volts internal headroom in case you really need to punish an amp!