What's the story on the Maxon OD820?

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fearhk213

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Can anyone give me the low down on these? How do they compare to the other ususal Ibanez and Maxon 808's & TS9's/OD9's? I hear more about the others, but just recently read where Andy Sneap spoke very highly of them so I'm curious since he knows a thing or two about tone. ;)
 
I have a OD-9 Analogman silver mod...Still seems to color the spectrum. Even though A/man sez no, I hear it as plain as day.
I think all T/S design is made w/a eq (like it or not) built in....All pedals do to some extent, but T/S's have a mid emphasis for sure.
 
Mine was very clear and tight sounding. Not near as honky as a ts9. I preferred mine with a les paul/marshall over my klon and TS style pedals.
 
one i miss.

internal voltage doubling gives off that big headroom flavor.
great if not the best tube screamer variant i've heard. not squeezed or pinched or humpy.
i hit it with a tone press comp and got one of the sweetest mid gain tones i've ever had. warm with the right blend of definition and spank.

they make a newer pedal with the same circuit in a smaller enclosure--the vop-9 or something???
 
I tried just about every OD imaginable at one point when I was doing a shootout. I probably drove my bandmates crazy with 10-12 OD pedals scattered on the floor at every practice for a while, haha.

I like the Maxon OD808 better than the TS-9. I used to use a TS-9 but made the switch. I got an OD820 to try against the OD808 and swapped back and forth between the two on songs at band practice a couple times that week. For boosting amps, I preferred the OD808, and it's what I still have on my pedal board now about 3 years later. I like the little extra mids it gives and the way it pushes the amp, especially with low mid heavy amps like Rectos.

I can see where some people may prefer something a little different with upper mid focused amps like Marshalls, but I like the OD808 with it, too. If you want something a little more transparent when clean boosting or that has a little less of a mid hump, the OD820 woudl be more to your liking. If you like the little extra flavor typical TS-type circuits add, you'll probably like the OD808 better.

It's really just depends on what your tone taste is. You can't go wrong with either.
 
I have a Klon and an OD820 at the moment because I always read they are comparable. Turns out they are not; the Klon is definately thicker sounding when used as a clean boost (or even in bypass because of the buffer for that matter).

Used as a distortionbox, I like the Maxon a little better, the Klon seems to be too thick in that role.

Klon is noisier, although not by a really big margin.

Giga
 
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