Anybody here use the Loopbone?

[prsbass]

I'm searching out all the the bypass loop pedals and have read about a lot of them in another post here. A friend of mine sells Tonebone stuff and is offering me a pretty good deal on a loopbone but I can't find any reviews of the pedal here. It's a little more costly than other pedals that do similar functions so I'm trying to figure out if it's worth the extra cost.

[niftydog]

I think folks here tend to prefer true bypass loopers.

Originally Posted by www.tonebone.com

To ensure the natural tone of your instrument is maintained, no signal degrading op-amps or chips are used – only 100% discreet components and our highly acclaimed Class-A circuit, which combine to achieve Radial's trademark transparency and exceptional dynamics. The Loopbone also features Radial's unique Drag™ control pickup load correction circuit that allows the restoration of a proper 'amplifier' impedance load which is lost when you plug a guitar into effect pedals or other buffered devices.

This "read between the lines marketing diatribe" translation service proudly provided by niftydog:

"To ensure the natural tone of your instrument is maintained, no signal degrading op-amps or chips are used even though transistors and op amps both utilise the exact same technology hence the insinuation that op amps are somehow inferior is total bubkiss – only 100% discreet components and our highly acclaimed Class-A circuit sounds technobabbley enough to convince dolts that our product is somehow magically better than other products using the exact same technology, which combine to achieve Radial's trademark transparency and exceptional dynamics. The Loopbone also features Radial's unique Drag™ control pickup load correction circuit that allows you to over-ride the brilliance of our lauded class A amplifier to restore the fullness of your technically crappy amplifiers input stage which is lost when you plug a guitar into effect pedals or other buffered devices because nobody can design a buffer quite as good as we do.

Heck, I'm all for enthusiastic marketing, but when they wheel out the technobabble and hypocritically deride perfectly good technology I draw the line.

Hmm, must've been bitten by the agro bug this morning...

[prsbass]

Thanks for the info. I read that but didn't catch that it wasn't true bypass. I think I'll Bypass on the Loopbone.

[Swift713]

What if anything does "Class A Circuit" mean? From what I can tell it's just short for "really expensive."

[niftydog]

Class A indicates that it's a one-transistor amplifier. That's it. There's nothing magical about it at all. It's the simplest amplifier you can make, basically.

For those playing at home... a class B push-pull is two transistors working in tandem. Class B amps can be more powerful, but you get what's called crossover distortion when the signal is passing from one transistor to the other. Hard to explain without going in-depth.

Class C is for radio frequency applications and is not suitable to amplifying audio. Then there's dozens of other classes as well including many that denote "digital" amps.

[funkydanbass]

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, BUT....

What true bypass looper pedals do people favour? Passive v. Active? Etc?