A new delay pedal from Benson—matter-of-factly named the Benson Delay—makes expert use of a digital chip and additional analog circuitry to recall the richness of earlier delay units.
The digital-analog has been called "the best of both worlds" by the likes of Josh Scott and "seriously powerful, scarily accurate" by Guitar World. So what's the science behind the sound?
To delay aficionados, delay pedals that use a PT2399 chip can sometimes be seen as inferior to those that use a bucket-brigade device (BBD).
Historically speaking, the PT2399 was found in karaoke machines before being repurposed in guitar pedals more recently, while BBDs have been used to create some of the world's most popular chorus and delay effects since the 1970s.
Chris Benson, the namesake designer behind Benson Amps, is known for bringing a high level of quality and craft to anything he creates, which includes amps like the Monarch and Benmaster and effects like the Preamp Pedal and Germanium Boost.
So it's not much of a surprise that, instead of accepting the limitations of the PT2399, he instead stretched its possibilities to create a first-rate delay out of it.
The result is a pedal that feels and sounds more akin to the tape echoes and BBD pedals delay aficionados adore, but with a precision of a digital effect. And what's more is that the Benson Delay's maximum delay time clocks in at 1.25s—a full quarter-second longer than most other PT2399-based effects.
Find your Benson Delay on Reverb now, and hear for yourself.