Klon Centaur, the real deal

gimmesometruth27

i had the pleasure of playing not one, but two original Klon Centaurs on Saturday. there is a tiny mom and pop music store here where the owner has two on his board. yes, he actually gigs with 2 klons on his board. he has a gold horsie one and a silver non-horsie one. he said he is primarily gigging at his church right now, so it is the biggest gear flex of all time, lol.

my friend and i made the journey and played through the board pictured below. since it was the owner's personal board, the only pedals for sale were the two klons. I tried to buy that king of tone but he said no. He wanted $5800 for the silver, and $7300 for the gold horsie. my friend and i were talking about going halfsies on the silver one. i would keep it mon-wed, he would get it thurs-sat and we would alternate sundays lol.

my friend is putting together an offer for the silver one, as we both thought it sounded a little better than the gold. he has a ton of super expensive stuff to trade, and is looking to downsize, so maybe they can make a deal. he is going over there today with some stuff to potentially trade for it.

i am a klon skeptic. i have a tumnus that i love. i use it as an always on boost for single coil pickups like my strat and tele. it typically muddies up my tone with humbuckers so i rarely have it on when i play my gibsons. but these real klons were something else. 

my friend has the 3rd generation klon. the red one. i did not want to believe the hype, but the original pedals actually do sound and play and feel better than all of the clones i have played. the guy had a silver centura clone there at the shop but it was not working and was in for service. he said that that actually gets very close to the silver klon. we were hoping to compare the klone to the two originals.

my friend is going to take his red klon in there and AB it against the other two. if it is really close he is going to walk away, but if silver sounds better he is going to try to make a deal for it.

i am just here to support him in his tone chasing endeavors, lol

bootlegger10

Holy crap that is a lot of money for a pedal, but tone is tone.   I would settle for 2 days a week and save some cash.

Let us know where this ends up.  That is a cool looking board.  I am picturing this beautiful ornate church with this dirty, dusty board straight out of the 80's. 

gimmesometruth27

bootlegger10 said:

Holy crap that is a lot of money for a pedal, but tone is tone.   I would settle for 2 days a week and save some cash.

Let us know where this ends up.  That is a cool looking board.  I am picturing this beautiful ornate church with this dirty, dusty board straight out of the 80's. 

yeah my friend has acquired some primo gear over the years. he was a national sales director for a few years so he spent a lot on gear so he has some cool stuff to trade. this is way out of my price range, but it would be cool to say i have one. i told my friend that if he gets this it will be mine by proxy, lol.

i asked the guy what happens if his board gets stolen. he said that he has insured it, lol. 

my friend and i were joking  and saying "do you think the elderly church members can tell that that guy has 2 OG klons on that board??"

my bands are basically bar bands. i would NEVER take a legit klon into a bar. i would never let that thing out of my sight. but like you said, tone is tone.

i will keep you updated. i texted him and told him i would meet him there for moral support. plus i want to hear the red klon vs the gold and silver ones for myself.

bootlegger10

Good luck!  SOunds like a fun time regardless of whether he walks away with it. 

gimmesometruth27

his red one is the klon ktr. i think i forgot to mention that.

gimmesometruth27

i just priced the ktrs on reverb. those are going between $630 and $1100. still outrageous, lol.

dudeman

A friend of mine has a KTR and it has developed an intermittent signal problem. Sometimes it works, other times it acts as a mute switch for his rig. He sent me a gut shot to see if I could diagnose the problem. 

What he sent really surprised me, especially considering the crazy high prices these things sell for. It's all PCB mounted jacks and surface mount components. Most likely made entirely by machine and designed for easy mass production.

Don't get me wrong, the circuit is great and a lot of talented musicians have used them to great effect. Just know, the KTR is not anywhere near the build quality of even the most modest boutique pedal builders.

(This photo is just like his but it's from a Reverb listing, not his actual pedal. This is a better photograph than the one he sent.)

gimmesometruth27

dudeman said:

A friend of mine has a KTR and it has developed an intermittent signal problem. Sometimes it works, other times it acts as a mute switch for his rig. He sent me a gut shot to see if I could diagnose the problem. 

What he sent really surprised me, especially considering the crazy high prices these things sell for. It's all PCB mounted jacks and surface mount components. Most likely made entirely by machine and designed for easy mass production.

Don't get me wrong, the circuit is great and a lot of talented musicians have used them to great effect. Just know, the KTR is not anywhere near the build quality of even the most modest boutique pedal builders.

(This photo is just like his but it's from a Reverb listing, not his actual pedal. This is a better photograph than the one he sent.)

i think the ktr was the new generation that could be mass produced. i know all the OG centaurs were hand built by finnegan himself at a folding table in his apartment in MA. also the guts of the OG centaurs were covered in a black epoxy presumably to keep others from copying the circuit.

this ktr looks pretty clean on the inside.

gimmesometruth27

my friend talked to the guy yesterday. the owner is entertaining several offers, so will see if anything happens today. i would think that they would rather sell locally so that they do not have to ship and insure the thing, but what do i know?

dudeman

gimmesometruth27 said:

dudeman said:

A friend of mine has a KTR and it has developed an intermittent signal problem. Sometimes it works, other times it acts as a mute switch for his rig. He sent me a gut shot to see if I could diagnose the problem. 

What he sent really surprised me, especially considering the crazy high prices these things sell for. It's all PCB mounted jacks and surface mount components. Most likely made entirely by machine and designed for easy mass production.

Don't get me wrong, the circuit is great and a lot of talented musicians have used them to great effect. Just know, the KTR is not anywhere near the build quality of even the most modest boutique pedal builders.

(This photo is just like his but it's from a Reverb listing, not his actual pedal. This is a better photograph than the one he sent.)

i think the ktr was the new generation that could be mass produced. i know all the OG centaurs were hand built by finnegan himself at a folding table in his apartment in MA. also the guts of the OG centaurs were covered in a black epoxy presumably to keep others from copying the circuit.

this ktr looks pretty clean on the inside.

For sure! The real deal Klons were well built. 

This KTR is built like a Zoom or Digitech multi effect. It might sound great but for the current selling rate, it is no where near the quality and serviceability standard that one might expect. 

gimmesometruth27

sounds like my friend walked away for now. he offered to trade his gibson trini lopez, which are valued between 6 and 9k and the guy said no. he has his silver klon priced about 1k higher than the average going rate on reverb. we are wondering if he overpaid for it and needs to get his money back. my friend is going to try to talk to him again in a few days. we may go back in there this weekend. my friend is pretty frustrated because he made a couple of fair offers to the guy.