Deep Dive! All About the Klon Centaur Germanium Clipping Diodes!

The venerable Klon Centaur has invaded just about everyone’s pedalboard in one form or another, but are those famous germanium clipping diodes really the “magic“ that makes the Centaur so popular? 0:00 - Intro 2:18 - Part 1: History of the Klon Centaur 2:57 - Bill Finnegan, designing and selling the Centaur 6:40 - FSB trace of S698 10:32 - Schematic released, Klon Centaur stops production, KTR 12:31 - Significance of Klon diodes 15:47 - Part 2: Diodes, basic electrical characteristics 19:04 - Forward voltage curves 22:09 - What we know about the Klon Centaur diodes 24:19 - How Finnegan chose the diodes 25:02 - forward voltage discrepancies 30:53 - Klon diode replacements 35:54 - Finnegan is running out of the original diode 37:53 - Part 3: Clean Boost Mode? 40:52 - Listening test intro 42:28 - Beginning of listening test 45:57 - Oscilloscope test intro 47:35 - Beginning of o-scope test 51:26 - Outro Disclaimers: I am not