The genius behind the iconic Klon Centaur overdrive, Bill Finnegan, has announced that future Klon KTRs will incorporate new components due to diminishing NOS diode supply.
Delivering the “bad news” in a live stream event, Finnegan said, “literally just shy of 27 years of Klon production, I am coming down to the very end of my stock of the New Old Stock diodes that have been in all of these pedals since the beginning.
“I tried for years and years and years to find more of those damn things—I’ve seemingly exhausted every possibility—I just don’t think there are any more of them out there.”
“So, going forward, KTRs are going to have different clipping diodes. I guess I should feel fortunate that the ones I bought back in the early-to-mid-’90s have lasted as long as they have,” he added.
That said, future KTRs will come with slightly altered circuitry since, as Finnegan puts it, “There are some modified values so that the overall result ends up sounding the same (as the original pedals).”
Earlier in the video, the legendary Klon creator took a pair of KTRs for a spin side-by-side, revealing before the event concludes that one of which contains the new diode variation.
“The reason we did the listening first is because, hey, one of these two KTRs has the new diodes,” Finnegan notes. “If you weren’t able to hear a difference, that’s a good thing. That means I’ve done my work.”
No details yet as to when the first run of newly equipped KTRs will be available in the market, but Finnegan ensures they will stay true to its original blueprint.
