Benson Germanium Boost demo

Having bought the Benson Preamp and been so impressed with it, I thought I would check out their simple boost pedal.
Now, simple is perhaps not the right term as this may be a straight boost with approximately 20dB of gain on hand but it uses a germanium transistor and these are apparently notoriously difficult to get stable linear gain from. All sorts of factors like voltage stability and even temperature can send the transfer characteristic wobbling into saturated oblivion.

So the clever people at Benson amps have devised a circuit that stabilises the germanium transistor to provide a clean boost.

I have a clean boost pedal: a TC Electronics Spark but I will tell you that it is nowhere as good as this.
I knew I would like it. Benson make good stuff and now I want a Benson Chimera too!

I'm using a Gretsch custom shop triple jet into the boost then into a Fender Deluxe Reverb 65 Reissue. I am only using the neck and bridge position for this whole demo.

Note that this does not add distortion to the sound. It is making the amplifier do it!

I start off at unity and try various comparisons. I have to say that even at unity it sounds better in some strange way but not because it changes the frequency response much. It seems to have an extra touch of sparkle in the high end perhaps but it really drives signal into the front end.

The amp is slightly compressing even when the boost is off and this type of effect will work with amps which will go into saturation. If I tried this on my big Fender Twin, it would just get horrifically loud and not much else as it has so much headroom but the Deluxe Reverb just loves to get rowdy quickly.

This would work well into the Benson Preamp too and if I ever get a sniff at a Chimera I should try that as well. However, Benson amps in the UK are as rare as objective government scientific advisors.

See what you think....

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