Dunlop MXR Distortion Plus vs Walrus Audio Iron Horse V3
The Dunlop MXR Distortion Plus and the Walrus Audio Iron Horse V3 are both pedals sharing compressed, mid-forward, op-amp. The Dunlop MXR Distortion Plus leans warm and saturated. The Walrus Audio Iron Horse V3 leans high gain and tight.
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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.49% — somewhat different
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Derived from overlapping tonal signals across both listings.- compressed
- mid-forward
- op-amp
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Citation/mention fame — how often this gear is cited across artist rigs and gear discussion.$210.75via Reverb
The MXR Distortion Plus is the original MXR distortion pedal, introduced in 1973 and one of the most influential hard-clipping distortion designs in the history of the electric guitar. The circuit uses a single op-amp with hard germanium diode clipping to produce a compressed, warm distortion character with a distinctive midrange voice. The Distortion Plus is strongly associated with Randy Rhoads, who used it with Ozzy Osbourne, and with Slash on early Guns N Roses recordings. It delivers moderate-to-high gain distortion with warm, natural compression and a mid-voiced character that cuts well in classic rock contexts. The design has been extensively copied and remains in production as the M104.
The Walrus Audio Iron Horse LM308 V3 is a high-gain distortion built on the LM308 op-amp at the heart of the ProCo RAT, delivering meaty, punchy, gnarly dirt that gets genuinely rowdy in front of an amp. It is not a straight RAT clone: the highs are rolled back and the bass more accentuated, giving a thicker, darker and slightly fuzzier voice with a smoother midrange, less presence and less flattening of the guitar's natural low-end bloom than the original. The V3's headline change is a continuous clipping dial that blends between different clipping diodes, reaching hybrid textures no single-diode circuit can produce, from tight and compressed to loose and open. It adds top-mounted jacks, a soft-relay true bypass switch and a fixed volume drop-off with the distortion knob at minimum.
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Genres this gear is documented as being used in.- Classic Rock
- Rock
- Alternative Rock
- Metal
- Hard Rock
- metal
- punk
- hard rock
- warm
- saturated
- high gain
- tight