Benson Amps Portable Distortion 424 MKII vs The Sound of Justice FX Star-Lord
The Benson Amps Portable Distortion 424 MKII and the The Sound of Justice FX Star-Lord are both pedals sharing saturated, edge of breakup, bright. The Benson Amps Portable Distortion 424 MKII leans fuzzy. Current prices: $199 vs $109.
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Blended from circuit-archetype lineage, dynamic feel, tone-signal overlap and tone-vector distance — the tone vector itself is derived from editorial description text, not a measured acoustic signal, so this reflects how similarly the catalog copy describes the two, not a lab measurement. Shown only within a gear class, and only where there's enough evidence to be meaningful.34% — somewhat different
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Genres both listings are associated with.- Experimental
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Derived from overlapping tonal signals across both listings.- saturated
- edge of breakup
- bright
- transparent
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Citation/mention fame — how often this gear is cited across artist rigs and gear discussion.$199via Reverb
$109via Reverb
The Benson Amps 424 MKII is a preamp and distortion pedal designed to recreate the saturation and harmonic character of the input stage of the Tascam Portastudio 424 MkII cassette four-track recorder. The circuit captures the non-linear behavior of cassette-era input electronics, spanning from subtle coloration and clean boost through compressed broadband distortion and unstable breakup. A switchable front-end buffer fundamentally alters the gain structure: engaged, it presents a high-impedance guitar input with tighter low end and increased headroom; bypassed, the circuit returns to a darker, fuzzier low-impedance cassette response. Four controls -- gain, trim, bass, treble -- cover a wide EQ range. Internal 18V operation provides increased headroom. Made by Benson Amps in Portland, Oregon.
The Sound of Justice FX names this release Star-Lord after the Marvel superhero, and its fuller original listing title describes it as a heavily experimental, corrupted treble boost, suggesting a circuit that pushes the classic treble boost format into unstable, glitchy territory rather than a clean, well-mannered top-end lift. Traditional treble boosters, historically associated with players like Brian May and Tony Iommi in their early careers, simply emphasize high frequencies to help a guitar cut through a mix, but the corrupted framing here implies deliberate instability or unpredictable saturation layered on top of that basic function. Small experimental builders often use language like this specifically to signal a circuit designed to misbehave in interesting, musically useful ways.
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Genres this gear is documented as being used in.- Electronic
- Indie
- Indie Rock
- Alternative Rock
- Rock
- fuzzy