Decibelics Golden Horse Professional Overdrive – Mini Klon Centaur clone

Amazing mini pedal that sounds and uses the same NOS components as the original Klon Centaur made by Bill Finnegan, but WAAAAAY smaller.

This as boutique as possible. Decibelics is a ONE man shop run by Guillem Vilademunt based in his garage in Barcelona, Spain. Guillem began repairing and modifying pedals for himself and for friends around 2010/11. Later he started making some Fuzz, Overdrive and Distortion pedals that he sold to local guitarists or online, as well as mods for Digitech XP Series pedals.

In 2012, he got to try an expensive original Klon Centaur Silver. He studied his circuit he started making his first Klones that were so accurate word spread.

The original vintage Klon Centaur is a huge pedal. Not to mention quite expensive vintage pedal. Probably one of the most copied pedals around. If you open an original Klon you can see that this box is quite a bit larger than was needed to contain the circuit board and other components. These were built in the days before players had large pedal boards and space has become an issue.

In 2016 Guillem took on the challenge to create the most faithful Centaur clone that exists in mini format and with vintage components. Decibelics Golden Horse is a reproduction of the original Klon Centaur adapted to the mini pedal format, Totally handmade by Guillem and loaded with vintage components and N.O.S. (New Old Stock).

These pedals are hand built and tested by Guillem so there is some reasonable wait time. On delivery showed the boxing and packaging took as much care as the product. I was quite impressed.

The pedal is impeccably built and it is clear Guillem is a talented and caring builder.

I have owned and still own quite a few pedals inspired by the Klon. Some are supposedly KLONES are some are “inspired by…” None are mini-sized, except the original Tumnus which is also a great little pedal.

So what does it sound like? Fantastic does not describe it. I was intending to place this on a small pedalboard with all mini pedals I have, but sounds so good it may end up moved around on ALL my pedalboards!

I compared the little Decibelics Golden Horse Professional Overdrive to a nice few Klon style pedals in my collection RYRA Klone Overdrive and original Wampler Tumnus mini and the Tumnus Deluxe and found that the Decibelics Golden Horse tended to be more transparent as a clean boost. I actually though the pedal was switched off when I first plugged in my guitar!

Bottomline the Decibelics Golden Horse stacks up or bests the other Klones I tested out in its mini size. Love this little pedal.

From Decibelics website:
Decibelics Golden Horse Professional Overdrive is the result of all my experience studying and building Klon Centaur clones squeezed into a mini enclosure. Handmade from thru-hole and New Old Stock components and same values as the original. No SMD or approximated values – My goal was to give Tone and Mojo in a mini footprint. You are not buying a mass-produced and lifeless pedal here.

The Decibelics Golden Horse is the only klone in the market, that is A/B tested against a real gold Centaur prior to be shipped to you.

Specs:
+ Exact sonic reproduction of my original gold Klon Centaur, horsie close-tail, serial number 2505 from 2001 (See pictures below) Among my original Klons, this particular unit was undoubtely the one with the best tone.
+ Mini luxury format, vintage and thru-hole components, built one by one, with extreme dedication. Fruit of years of experience studying the circuit and building Klones for professional guitar players.
+ Same Panasonic ECQ-Series N.O.S. capacitors as the original
+ Same N.O.S. 1N34A Germanium diodes (Clear crystal and black band as the original, made in USA) – The commonly known as Magic Diodes (No russian blue and red stripped diodes as others mount– Same as the original!)
+ Same combination of carbon and metal film resistors
+ Same Tantalum capacitor in position C16
+ Same format on capacitors in values ​​above 1uf -Electrolytics- adapted to the size of the pedal
+ Same Charge Pump that raises internal voltage from 9V to 18V for bigger headroom
+ Same values ​​and highest quality in the other components: Opamps TL072 from Texas Instruments, noiseless Charge Pump from superior quality, Bourns Pro Audio potentiometers, Footswitch Alpha DPDT, Lumberg Japan jacks, Hammond enclosure powdercoated and screen-printed by hand
+ Buffered bypass, same as the original, with correct values
+ PCB board of my own design, with parasitic noise level optimization

Accessories included: White Shipping Box de luxe (plus foam), External 9V Battery Adapter, 4 Rubber Feet, Knob Markers, English Manual, Certificate of Authenticity.

This pedal is an amazingly quiet build.