Bill Finnegan announces future Klon KTRs to be made with new components after NOS diode supply diminishes

Last week, Bill Finnegan – the brains behind the mythical Klon Centaur overdrive pedal – announced a new dedicated YouTube channel, and teased an important announcement concerning the future of Klon production.

After a short delay to the initial livestream event, Finnegan finally managed to get on air to publicize the announcement, revealing future Klon KTRs will be built using new components due to diminishing supplies of his favored NOS diodes.

“There’s good news and there’s bad news here,” began Finnegan. “The bad news is that, literally just shy of 27 years of Klon production, I am coming down to the very end of my stock of the New Old Stock diodes that have been in all of these pedals since the beginning.

“I tried for years and years and years to find more of those damn things – I’ve seemingly exhausted every possibility – I just don’t think there are any more of them out there,” he continued.

“So, going forward, KTRs are going to have different clipping diodes. I guess I should feel fortunate that the ones I bought back in the early-to-mid-’90s have lasted as long as they have.”

Due to the shakeup, the KTRs will also feature slightly tweaked circuitry – as Finnegan explains, “There are some modified values so that the overall result ends up sounding the same (as the original pedals).”

Earlier in the livestream, Finnegan took two KTRs for a spin side-by-side, and, at the end of the event, revealed one of the pedals was in fact fitted with the new diode variation. Smart move, Bill.

“The reason we did the listening first is because, hey, one of these two KTRs has the new diodes,” he said. “If you weren’t able to hear a difference, that’s a good thing. That means I’ve done my work.”

Finnegan went on to say that, going forward, any Centaurs he builds in the future will have priority of his final supply of NOS diodes, ensuring the much-hyped pedal remains true to its original blueprint.

Nothing was revealed in terms of when the first batch of newly equipped KTRs will go up for sale, though we expect further updates to arrive in later livestreams.

Other highlights from the video include a demo of his 001 Klon Centaur – the pedal that preceded JHS Pedals' Josh Scott's 002 unit, the latter of which the YouTuber amusingly listed for $500,000.

In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for updates over at Bill Finnegan’s YouTube channel.