Should the Gold and Silver Klon Centaur be merged?

I think they're the same, and have enough overlapping artists to justify the merge. Here are the two pages.

https://equipboard.com/items/klon-centaur-professional-overdrive-guitar-pedal

https://equipboard.com/items/klon-centaur-gold-horsie

From what I know, the difference is sound between them is a widespread myth, and given how alternate finishes on guitars are categorized as duplicates, I would make that argument. Now there may be more than two aesthetic variations out there, there was an overlap in years between Gold and Silver, and they were always categorized as the same product by the manufacturer.

supposedly on a component level the signal path is virtually identical, there was a pcb layout change IIRC and I think a slight cap value change you can't hear... I mean, on stage in a band you can't hear the difference between like jack and sh!t on your pedal board and no one else can but people make much of this nonsense

Agreed, I'm usually in favor of different pedal variations being documented, but for these the difference seems easier to ignore. Not like I'll ever play one anyway.

I was around when they were newly advertised in the guitar rags and I wouldn't shell out the 200 some bucks to get on the waitlist. Hindsight being 20/20 I shoulda signed up for my whole family and sold the damn things off at the peak fervor when Bill stopped making them but before they were de-gooped and copied. I hate to say this but I've used a real one and the soul food wss close enough for mist folks, especially people who just use it as a clean boost (wtf?! You can just make a tl072 buffer/boost on 18 volts for like 10 to 20 bucks guys... the charge pump, box and hardware are the priciest part, the secret sauce diodes are effectively out of circuit at low gain settings, not clipping, you just hear the "eq" of the distortion side blended in a smidge, and the diodes are completely out with gain full anti clockwise. Gains a dual pot. Its both an input level to the diodes AND a blend pot between buffer and diode clipping).

It's a pretty creative circuit; the power supply and clean blend were innovative at any rate, the distortion part is just a better voiced distortion+ with supposedly cooler sounding germanium diodes (although all germanium are electrically similar and have the same forward voltage drop) and an op amp with a higher slew rate than the lm741, but that's any op amp, the 741 is the first remotely usable chip ever, they kinda suck for audio... but I laugh when the tl082 chip is touted as being a great hifi opamp by pedal guys. I guess its good compared to the Japan radio corp op amps in most boss and ibanez classics and as mentioned, anything can run circles around a 741 despite it being touted as the source of the rat tone that's BS, it's just the source of all that hiss. In pro audio you see tl072s, the low noise version of the tl082, in lots of affordable gear and trident 80 series inspired mixers from the UK and even that we're not super thrilled with, well I'm okay with it but many recording folks aren't. They are not the best for noise and distortion and can do weird phase inversions that sound awful if the input signal approaches the voltage rail(s) which us probably the real reason they used a charge pump to double the power supply to 18 volts. On 9 volts you could easily get the IC to flip shit with a clean boost out front. In pro audio they're typical run on at leas +/-15v and so it would probably take over 29 volts to freak the thing out, line level is a little better than 1 volt, in practice lower, we don'tboost stuff up as hard as guitarists do, despitepickups putting out like half a volt at best rock guitar players are 'ganiacs.' You never know what a guitarist might throw at an input, they've been trained by tubes to assume all amplification devices will handle it as gracefully as a 12ax7 but it's not always the case. Anyway, I'm just nerd ramblin'

EDIT I should get a bunch of those tle2072 chips that are the texas instruments upgrade to the tl082/72 and build some 'centaur' boosts lol. Itll be clean as hell and totally noise free with high quality modern resistors and panasonic FC caps in the power supply and for decoupling. I could use the other op amp stage on the IC as a servo to remove DC and take all the capacitors out of the signal path making it perfectly phase coherent like a straight wire with gain. Folks eat those gimmicks right up even though you'll never hear it in a mix.

Maybe I could sell them to Mayer fans for like 300 bucks apiece lol. I could call it the pretty boy blues booster plus. The plus is for the 200% profit I would make above parts and labor. But the pedal game is for chumps. Just ask Billy Finnegan... it takes a Josh to sell the same old same old at big enough scale to quit your day job. And I'm a Jim, not a Josh.

I see you have a hotcake! Super cool design!! It leverages the poor slew rate of the 741 op amp more audibly than a rat.

@Michael - should we merge the 2 centaur colors?

When it comes to the diodes I find it hard to believe the difference between a 0.35 forward voltage is going to be audible compared to the regular 0.3V, and with the latest KTR's switching diodes I'd assume Bill tweaked something else to make up for the change.

Bill teased a Klon clean boost at NAMM years ago, and there's a few videos on it, but then he went silent on it oddly. I think the JHS Prestige is the same concept in a one knob format, but I can't find much on the circuit. I know Tone Ranger Audio on Instagram built one that looks really solid too.

Oh, thanks on the Hot Cake!! I've tried nearly every classic drive circuit and think it deserves its due, especially since you can still get one from the man himself.

When it comes to the diodes I find it hard to believe the difference between a 0.35 forward voltage is going to be audible compared to the regular 0.3V, and with the latest KTR's switching diodes I'd assume Bill tweaked something else to make up for the change.

I would think you could just dump 50mv to ground before the diodes for a similar clipping response at the same gain settings as the original. Ir you have a separate gain and blend control with single gang pots. I have tons of different germanium diodes in my parts drawer and they all sound the same back to back hard clipping a boosted signal although not always at the same gain settings.

Bill teased a Klon clean boost at NAMM years ago, and there's a few videos on it, but then he went silent on it oddly. I think the JHS Prestige is the same concept in a one knob format, but I can't find much on the circuit. I know Tone Ranger Audio on Instagram built one that looks really solid too.

Any fet input op amp would work. There are lots of great low noise options from burr brown these days I would use over a tl072. A lot of them aren't even expensive anymore. If I recall, one half is the controversial buffer and the other the amp... anyway you could do single amps and mix and match. You need a fet input for the buffer do as to avoid loading your pickups but anything will work for the amp stage. You could ty hrow a 5534 in as the clean boost. Linear as hell and super low distortion and noise... 18v might be a little low for best performance th joygh and a 5534 is current hungry too. But irs do-able with a suitable boost converter and a good voltage regulator and a couple resistors. I would never pay for a klon boost lol. I could build a better one for cheap. If I were doing a clean boost I would probably just buffer one half of a 5532 with a k170 fet fir a 1meg+ input impedance and use the second half of the 5532 as a servo and only put 1 cap in the audio path in the feedback loop to set bandwidth.

Oh, thanks on the Hot Cake!! I've tried nearly every classic drive circuit and think it deserves its due, especially since you can still get one from the man himself.

I had one, it was a great pairing with my old as hell ac30. I forget why I sold it. If you want more balls in a similar style try a tech21 xxl. Instead of overloading a non inverting opamp stage it uses an inverting tl071 to slam some crappy low-slew non-audio op amp also with non-inverting input grounded and the tone and harmonics control are nested in the feedback loops l. Clever. Great with a vox or a tweed deluxe type amp like those little 50s gibsons, supros or an ampeg jet or my mercury. A little noisy at high gain but its plenty of gain for mist rock with the drive turned all the way down. It sorta picks up where the hot cake leaves off. It's a real sleeper too. Someone gave me mine. Dig it.

I'll definitely check out that Tech 21 XXL, I've heard good things about the Double Drive 3X and Liverpool for the Vox thing.

I'll definitely check out that Tech 21 XXL, I've heard good things about the Double Drive 3X and Tri-AC for the Vox thing.

I'm an ac30 fanatic. At one point I had 4. It's a bad@$$ sound on it's own but it likes a little push sometimes. I'll use the xxl into my non-topboost brilliant channel when I can't turn up real loud or if I just want a lot more grind and sizzle. The vintage ac30 overdrive is very polite even at 10. More of a growl than a crunch. I've never heard a pedal that apes it perfectly but the catalinbread vixen amp in a box is in the ballpark into a blackface fender with british speakers instead of jensens or oxfords or whatever us in the new ones stock. I haven't tried them all though. Hell, my new blonde ac30 doesn't quite do it.

I thought the centaur sounded best into non master marshalls when you can't dime them out. But I'm also good with a boss superoverdrive or a rat in that use case. In fact I always like a rat with the gain down.

Obviously I take everything apart and figure out what makes it tick.

I have an AC10, Iridium, and THR I all use to do the AC30 thing in different contexts. I also quite like the Vox Mystic Edge as an amp sim, and keep it as a backup for my Iridium. I'll use the Hot Cake with any of them, but the AC10 (upgraded with a Weber DT10 and NOS Mullards) is by far the best. I do plan to upgrade to either the 2X12 AC15 or an AC30 eventually, especially for the effects loop.

PS: Would you agree Alnico Blues are infinitely better for a Vox than Greenbacks? I really think you need the darker speakers to tame that high end.

Yeah the current ac10 and ac15 are just low watt top boost ac30s, although the 10 cuts other corners. The old amps, every model was really really different preamp circuitry, at least from about '60 onwards. I don't actually like the top boost and took the rear top boost add-on off my 62. I did add 100pf bright cap but mine is a bass model so the coupling cap us 1000pf, not a 500pf like a top boost or normal model. I usually put a 1000pf in the brilliant channel if all my ac30s even top boosted ones. Better lows and mids on the brilliant.

I agree about the AC10 cutting corners and not just with stock tubes but the whole construction. It doesn't mean it's not a good sounding amp, but if I had to do it again I would have gotten an AC15 or something more Fender ish. My other favorite amps are the old 5E3 Deluxe and Silvertone 1484.

(upgraded with a Weber DT10 and NOS Mullards) is by far the best. I do plan to upgrade to either the 2X12 AC15 or an AC30 eventually, especially for the effects loop.

I hope you didn't put nos mullards in the power section. An ac10 has lower plate voltage than a 15 or 30 but it's still an el84 pressure cooker. I would save nos power tubes for recording in a vox amp.

PS: Would you agree Alnico Blues are infinitely better for a Vox than Greenbacks? I really think you need the darker speakers to tame that high end.

I really like blues. Old and new. Lately I've been using a reissue blue paired with a g12h30 55hz ceramic for a best if both worlds sound. I don't like the current g12m greenback. I like the old ones. I also like g12s and g12l speakers and use both. My blonde ac30 currently has a pair if roland g12s speakers with pulsonic cones from right before the fire wired up in parallel for 8 ohms to give it a kite marshally bite. It gas a master volume so those speakers suit it, I use it for 70s rock tones. Still voxy but not british invasion voxy. I sold the greenbacks it came with. Sounded like trash.

My other favorite amps are the old 5E3 Deluxe and Silvertone 1484.

You could build a deluxe in an afternoon. Try an ampeg mercury or a Gibson titan or lancer though. Also try a 1483 bass head. Schools the 1484 to my ear. Tube rectified goodness.

Nah, JJs in the power section. I actually have a pretty decent tube collection for someone with so few tube amps, since I had a family member into ham radio. I also had an AC4 that was alright, but way too boxy and low headroom.

I do love Greenbacks in a Marshall though. A good buddy of mine has a newer Silver Jubilee combo he put some old ones in that sounds incredible.

Nah, JJs in the power section. I actually have a pretty decent tube collection for someone with so few tube amps, since I had a family member into ham radio. I also had an AC4 that was alright, but way too boxy and low headroom.

Wheew. Those old el84/6bq6s are getting thin on the ground. Hate to see them burned up without recordings for posterity.

The handwired ac4 is the best current production model. Sold mine to another equipboard member awhile back, it was nice but not for me. I like push pull. The phase splitter just adds complexity to the natural breakup of an amp.

I never studied up on the AC4 circuit, but I noticed it didn't like a Hotcake the same way as other ACs. Occasionally I could get it into Tweed Champ territory with something like a Duke of Tone, that cuts a little bass. Slamming it with a compressor was incredible though.

It's very similar to a champ or tweed princeton, just setup for an el84.

I do have a Champ 600, which is a tiny little single preamp tube thing, with absolutely no headroom. It feels like a glorified pignose in a good way, and is amazing with a good Muff, Treble Booster, or even an HM-2. The AC-4 had no headroom in a much less satisfying way, or maybe I was expecting it to be closer to my AC10.

Someone gave me a modern champ600 reissue. Hated it. But it had a little bit of headroom because it has a fixed mid cut built in via RC networks that are essentially a fender tonestack with the knobs set at 5 between the triode stages with the volume control just like in any blackface fender. Fenders throw away a lot of gain in that tone control and this fixed setup provides a more typical blackface fender, all knobs at 5 response, I usually don'tset a blackface that way personal... the modern ac4tv is similar topology but the tone knob barely throws away any gain, in fact it's the 5e3 topology where turning it up past 5 boosts treble gain effectively reducing headroom because there's negligible loss to the power amp and midrange is flat instead of attenuated. The el84 also has inherently lower headroom than the 6v6. A good mod fir an ac4tv would be to remove the tone control and replace it with a framus mid cut control centered at 1khz... switching to a lower gain 12ax7 variant would also help and be non-destructive. You could try a 7025, 12ay7, 12at7, 12dw7 (half and half 12ax7 abd 12au7) etc. I think I had a mullard ecc81 in my ac4hw and mone had the top boost tone stack but I think it had just the 1 stage with cathode follower, not the 2 stages and follower of a real ac30. So pretty good headroom although it really shined cranked up. The cabinet w as s boxy sounding especially with the stock greenback. It sounded better through an ac30 cab. It still was a less complex sound than it's big brothers. I sold it to @Narcist awhile back. Maybe 6 years sgo? He was into it.

Have you ever tried a 5751 tube in V1 of a Vox preamp? I found it really made the AC10's controls more usable and breakup better.

I think I have an rca 5751 in the top boost channel of my matchless clone... the parallel triode input is way too hot with a 12ax7