Behringer TO800 Vintage Tube Overdrive 4-stars Reviews

Behringer TO800 Vintage Tube review

Great sound from a cheap box. The TO800 reassembles the classic screaming overdrive sought by many guitar players, and a crucial sound to have in your arsenal. The only downside to it is the plastic casing that is a bit boring, but it is reliable and the sound is great.

Good stuff

A tubescreamer style overdrive from Behringer. Three basic knobs: drive, tone and level. Does exactly what you want it to do.

The build quality is not the best, as you might expect at this price point. The case feels sturdy, but the knobs are a bit wobbly and the pedal is a bit loose and doesn't feel like it could withstand too much jumping on it. I've only had it at home so that's not a problem, but you might wanna be careful if you play live with it.

The sound is good though. Smooth overdrive at the lowest setting, all the way to a crunchy distortion at maximum drive. The tone knob sweeps from low to high, giving more emphasis on the desired frequencies. I think it sounds the best from 12 o'clock right to maximum. I haven't found the low settings too useful yet.

The price of this thing is so incredible for what you get. Great distortion for guitars, synths, or whatever you wanna throw at it.

Great Value for Money

As you would expect, it isn't as well made as more expensive pedals. The construction is fairly solid but I doubt it would stand up to much abuse. The knobs on mine are a bit odd too. The level knob is very tight and considerably more difficult to turn than the drive knob, which seems loose by comparison. The tone knob seems to be somewhere in between the two in terms of resistance. This isn't a major issue but it does raise some questions about the construction quality. For home or studio use it shouldn't be a problem but I wouldn't use it for playing live unless I had a backup.

That aside, it sounds great. It's pretty much identical to a tubescreamer. I use it infront of a 6505 as a boost and it performs it's job of tightening up the low end and adding saturation perfectly. Considering it costs a small fraction of what you would pay for the tubescreamer it's modeled on it really is a bargain.