Is The Klon KTR Even A Good Drive Pedal?

I throw it into the signal chain against two brilliant Centaur alternatives and let you all decide.

Never in my life did I think I’d ever get a Klon KTR pedal. I sure as hell wasn’t going to spend nearly $1000 on Reverb for a scalpers pedal, and that means the multiple thousands it costs for a real Klon Centaur are out the door as well. But I was okay with this, after all, I’m not necessarily the biggest Klon or Klone fan in the world. It’s a great high gain punk distortion, but the hype about it as a magic booster is overrated. You don’t even have the “magic” diodes in the circuit when you use it at low gain!

Fast forward a bit and this moron forgot they put themselves on a KTR waiting list multiple years ago. And what’ya know, my number came up. For all the things I’ve said about Bill Finnegan’s business model, I did manage to get one of his vaunted drives before I could get a King of Tone!

And ironically enough, it was AFTER I had finished my Klon-a-Thon project or Ultimate-Guitar where I reviewed and compared over 14 klones. To all the commenters who said it was a useless project without a Centaur or KTR to compare to, look at me now! Project was still useless, but I have a KTR.

Demo

Guitar is my trusty single P90 Tele from RWM Guitars, and it’s running into the Universal Audio Dream & Ruby amp/cab sims in stereo. Plus, the Walrus Canvas Stereo is boosting everything before it hits the interface!

So, Is It Any Good?

All jokes aside, I was delighted to get a KTR to experience a fraction of the authentic Klon sound for myself. It’s a really cool opportunity to have a drive made by Bill in your hands after all the articles I’ve written bemoaning how hard to track down they are.

And yeah, it actually sounded really good when used in high gain mode. I’m completely unfazed by using it as a clean boost, but if you crank the gain the KTR is fantastic. It’s not quite as transparent as I believe people claim it is. It still has a bit of a mid hump, but not nearly as much as a Tube Screamer. Plus, it leaves a bit of the clean signal in there. Because the tone knob only impacts the dirty signal, you can still always have some of that clean “transparent’ sound in there as well.

But Is It Better Than Some Of My Favorite Klones?

This is where the Klon hype loses me. The KTR is fantastic, and I’m sure the Centaur is as well, but is it objectively so much more fantastic than other versions or clones? Well, you know I’ve been a big fan of the Demonic Machines Homunculus, which allows for LED and JFET clipping in addition to Germanium diodes. But now a new challenger has also entered the arena. Acorn Amps has been one of my favorite accounts to follow on Instagram forever, with a punk DIY attitude and some rad pedals. Their version is aptly named “Another Fucking Klon Klone”, and it’s a true to form circuit with (what sounds to me to be) a bass boost switch. So the point here is simply to see how close they get to the real deal, and if the real deal is even so special after all.

Like I said, the KTR definitely sounds great when the gain is properly cranked. But the AFKK from Acorn sounded so freaking identical to me. I would be hard pressed to really tell them apart, especially because that toggle switch bass boost seems very subtle. The Homunculus is still one of my favorite drives, but this has made me realize I like it so much because it’s not a pure Klon Klone. It definitely missed a little bit of the gain in germanium mode that the others had. Not much, but just a touch less, maybe it’s a slight compression to it?

But it’s very flexible, with the JFET and LED distortion sounds, and the JFET is particularly nice in my opinion. It’s one I’ve used on my gigging board quite a bit, and will continue to do. But I’m shocked at how identical the AFKK sounds to the Klon KTR. That pedal is the real deal for Klon lovers, my hats off to Acorn Amps.

So what do you think? Is the KTR worth the hype, price, and waitlist? Or are these other, more attainable alternatives just as enticing?