If we judged pedals on knobs per pound, the Benson Germanium Increase would be getting three out of 10. Fortunately, we don’t - because tweakability isn’t all the pieces, and this little inexperienced tone machine proves it.
 
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 There’s an attention-grabbing story behind the Germanium Enhance, made in Portland, Oregon, by certainly one of America’s most respected boutique amp builders. And that story begins with the Benson Germanium Fuzz, which won a rare 10/10 score from Guitar.com final year.
 
 Effectively, no, really it doesn’t. It begins with an concept that was rejected before that gadget even came into existence: a voltage-controlled error correction circuit. This was one thing Benson tried using to counteract the notorious flakiness of germanium, before settling instead on temperature management.
 
 Clearly, in the context of fuzz, that proved to be a greater than satisfactory solution; but for a clear increase using the same kind of transistors, the once-rejected error correction technique apparently works higher. The end result, in theory, must be all of the tonal sweetness of  https://www.metallos.de  with none of the instability.
 
 It hardly needs saying that that is an outrageously chic-trying unit, housing its goodies in a dark green folded metallic enclosure with simply enough room on high for that one level control plus a footswitch and a lime-green LED.
 
 In use
 Shall we begin with the boost degree set to zero and see the way it matches up to our bypass sign? No, we shan’t, as a result of that brings silence - all the things on the left aspect of the dial is actually slicing the output, with unity gain arriving somewhere around the quantity 5.
 
 With the degrees matched up we don’t hear a lot distinction in tone, however nearer consideration reveals a distinct softening of the higher midrange, leading to a subtle opening up of the treble response. It feels somewhat just like the effect of placing a raw guitar observe through a really nice studio EQ to make it sound, well, just better.
 
 That enhancement becomes much less obvious as we flip up the increase, however even at near most shunt levels there remains a component of scooping - enough to make our trusty Xotic EP Booster sound ever so slightly coarse as compared. Benson doesn’t state a decibel restrict nevertheless it seems like a good match for the Xotic’s 20dB; the only draw back is that it brings a teeny bit more background hiss.
 
 By the way, if you’ve seen the warning on the Benson website that it takes 10 seconds for the correction circuit to bias the transistor properly, don’t fear - this doesn’t happen each time you stomp on the bypass switch. In truth the one means to hear this phenomenon is to unplug the facility then plug it again in, and pay attention as the crackling turns progressively into pure guitar tone, like a battery dying in reverse.
 
 So, can a one-knob pedal be price £199? Properly, don’t buy the Benson Germanium Increase expecting to be blown away by a dramatic transformation in your sound… however by all means do purchase it if you’re a hardcore tonehound in the hunt for marginal positive factors. What this system lacks in knobs, it greater than makes up for in luxurious-level finesse.