DOD250 Reissue

So i was in the market for a overdrive pedal that would push my JCM800 to give it more guts when chunking out Rhythm's and most importantly for having that sweet gain saturation for leads.
The catch however was i wanted my warm Marshall sound, so what i was looking for was an OD that was more of a boost than anything else. Please not that i wansnt looking for a full on Metal distortion at this stage, i was looking more like a 'Rising force' type sound, or even Rhoads on Mr Crowly (i was macking an LP with Duncan JB-59 combo hehehe)

The serch was epic, and deciding after using a mates SD-1 that that was probably what i was looking for for a straight out metal with my RG and soon to be purchased seven.

I weighed up a bunch of stuff and eventualy settled on the DOD250 reissue... in part due to Malmsteen, i know, i know buying stuff because someone else uses it is not a good way to go about things but because i found one going cheep from wwbw.com i grabbed it.

Cost: $39US NZ$ aprox 65 at the time.

The Good:
Did what Malmsteen said, was a solid OD preamp that made 'big notes' or rather pushed the amp. Did this with relative ease of use, so the 'sweet spot' was not near impossible to locate like a EH Bass microsynth. Produced a really descent increase in gain without affecting the over all tone much, (or in a bad way for that matter) I was getting a descent Iron maiden 'run to the hills', crowleys ZW styled Pinch harmonics were suitably meaty, and even managed to get a well deffined Carcass with my mates 7321 RG with stock PU's (I know! it didnt sound like total dump, in his Carvin combo it actualy almost sounded convincingly descent.).

The Bad:
Move the gain knob any where past 10 oclock and you get the scuzziest thin sounding fuzzey distortion i have heard not comming out of an indie band. Not particularly suitable through anything othe than a descent set of valves. The biggest drawback is that it has an AC jack that looks like it takes a needle which makes it incompattable with 90% of all used adaptors (sneeky), probably not uber flash for metal unless this is your rhythm sound or your using a high gain amp, but even then this thing might be a bit hissy in the high gain relm.

The Biz:
Pretty happy with it, probably wouldnt use it all the time seeing as i mostly play metal and like a fairly tight sound. Did what i hoped it would do, which is now a bit redundant for my case seeing as i'm flooging the marshall and dont want to get an 800 model (loved the sound, really didnt like the limitations). Solid for vintage gain or smooth sound. Not fool proof, unfortunatly but not mind boggling either, just have your level up full and leave your gain arround ten, then rip the knobs of and file the pots because any other setting is dump.