Ugly Guitar Truth: BOSS 40th Anniversary Box Set

BOSS pedals just announced that they are reissuing some of their first pedal they have ever produced. The SP-1 Spectrum, OD-1 Over Drive, and PH-1 Phaser are being produced in a hand-made, small batch manufactured in Japan. Vintage pedal collectors and enthusiasts of vintage effects know the importance of such pedals. Before now, to find and acquire one of these pedal out in the wild would mean throwing down big money. The Spectrum pedal can fetch around $500 on the open market. So is this a treasure to be had or a gimmick to be avoided. Let check it out...

It's A Gamble

There is a phenomenon in the guitar world especially guitar pedals. When a item is discontinued it either fades to obscurity, or rises to near-legendary status. The later happened with the Klon and King of Tone, and the former has happened to many non-nameless pedals. However, rereleasing vintage pedals isn't money in the bank necessarily. The Tuber Screamer is a great case in point. The TS-808 in currently available in a rereleased form, but it bares such a strong resemblance to the TS-9 and is heavily clone and copied that the effect is readily available in countless iterations. So the strongest motivation to by an 808 or this box set is nostalgia.

Money Grab

We have to mention the price of the set. $900 for the three pedals. Yes it comes in a really nice display box. but at today's market value, these pedals would only set you back about $700. The real gem here is the Spectrum. It is a single band parametric EQ. That means you can choose to boost or cut one frequency. You can pick up a brand new Empress Para EQ pedal that blows this out of the water for half the price of the vintage pedal. The OD-1 and PH-1 are both obsolete and replaceable by pedals that no more than what their vintage counterparts fetch. Is this an attempt to capitalize on the vintage pedal market by BOSS? Ehh, well...


Because They Can

If BOSS put out these pedals as a part of their regular run with inflated prices, then I wouldn't hesitate to dismiss this as a cheap money grab. However, they are only made 1,500 of these sets. That probably less than one per each guitar shop in the US let alone the world. This a milestone for BOSS. The set was crafted by hand in Japan in small numbers. BOSS has sold millions of pedals. They don't need to jack up the prices of 1,500 units. Everything about this set is focused towards a serious collector. The price an limited run are to insure exclusivity. I'm sure there are those willing to pay that price for three pedals that will remain in a box.


Conclusion

When I first heard about these pedals, I thought that they were going to be like the WAZA line. But this is something all together different. These are a special collectors item. Pedal Nostalgia has been a thing for a while now, and BOSS is giving the market something that it has wanted for a while now. I'm not going to buy this set. I don't have that kind of money to throw at pedal I don't intend to use. However, if they rerelease the Slow Gear that might be a different story...

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$10 Overdrive vs $200 Overdrive

I've had a small credit sitting around at a music store. I honestly had no idea what I was going to use it for. I'm fairly well off on picks and strings and all that, so it has been sitting their. I noticed they had marked a Behringer Tube Overdrive right in my price range. I purchased the pedal with zero money down. Armed with a new pedal. I took it home and wondered what I was going to do with. I hadn't even tried it out at the store. It hit me. I'll put it out against my vintage Ibanez TS-9. Similar pedals sell for $200+. I thought it would make for a great "David vs Goliath" (kinda like how the Anderton's YouTube channel does) show down.

Long story short, There was a noticeable difference. The difference was present, but surprisingly small. the pedals made similar sounds. The Behringer was directly related to the Tube Screamer if not directly cloned. The biggest difference in the sounds was the amount of bass. The Vintage TS-9 was just a lot fuller sounding. The low end got left out for the most part when the Behringer overdrive was on. Also, the buffer in the Behringer sucked a little top end off. Putting the Behringer in a bypass loop, I was able to hear a little high end loss when it was kicked on. (This was confirmed in a bind sound-test) 2/3 I was able to tel when the pedal was in the loop. I blame the single time I was able to do so to the fact that my tone controls were tuned down accidentally.

The biggest shock of the whole test was the fact that the 30 year pedal was actually more reliable than the brand new one. Turn the Behringer was a hit or miss affair usually taking a few attempts. The Ibanez had no such problem. I have had to replace the switch in the Vintage pedal, but there really isn't any reason to have to repair a brand new effect.

Conclusion:

Did the more expensive pedal sound better? Yes. It also worked better in general. Did it perform 20 times better? No, but there are many pedal that do an excellent job of sounding like an iconic Tube Screamer and performing reliably.

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