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When operated on 9v this is a typical but solid AC30 clone with a decent amount of compression you expect from a typical overdrive pedal. Nothing spectacular, but does the job. However, when you up the volts to 12v/18v the pedal begins to really shine and set itself apart from other pedals in a huge way. On 18v, the pedal gains a ton of headroom, singing chime, and grinding, vibrating goodness! It gets all of that grind that makes AC30s sound so unique. Truly an Amp In A Box that can turn your amp into something completely different. My one major complaint is that the one-knob tone control scheme really limits this pedal. Instead of the typical Treble, and Bass knobs (with an implied Mid based on how those two knobs are set), this pedal puts the Bass, Treble (and Top Boost?) in one knob. What this means is that left of noon, the pedal is pretty much useless as it becomes dull and muddy. And past 3, the pedal loses most of its bass, meaning you've only got a small slice of use-able tone. This is made more frustrating by the fact that there is extra gain tied to the tone knob. The more you turn the tone knob to the right (more treble) the more "top boost"-esque gain it adds. That gain that would actually make the tone settings to the left more usable! The quality of this pedal warrants a 5/5, but the tone controls really hold it back. For such a high quality pedal, it makes me wish they chose the 5 knob approach of the Soma 63 instead of opting for simplicity. I'm going to rate this a 5/5 because it deserves it, but its really a 4/5 in my heart since the tone knob is so limiting.