lunastone

With its cascading Marshall-meets-Boogie tones, this Danish dirt box is a simple, oft-transformative delight.

Powerful variety of responsive high-gain tones. Makes small amps sound huge!

Decay can sound unusual at low-gain settings. Could benefit from a more powerful EQ.

$159

LunaStone Deep Metal
lunastonepedals.com

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With its oversized, comfortingly luminescent red lamp, dark finish, and diagonal control array, the latest from Danish stomp outfit LunaStone—the Deep Metal—is simple and handsomely evocative of WWII-era military electronics. And like said devices, its aesthetics belie the mayhem it unleashes. Innards consist of two PCBs that nearly run the length of the enclosure and face inward, thus concealing a view of the analog circuit's primary tone generators—a combination of clipping diodes and an op-amp driven by JFETs and BJTs (bipolar junction transistors). Designer Steen Grøntved says the goal of the Deep Metal was "an old-school heavy metal 'square sound.'" LunaStone certainly succeeded.

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