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Those Pesky Demons ...

Origin Effects Cali76

Which itself, is a ripoff of :

UREI / Universal Audio 1176
Wow. Yeah, I thought I was looking at an Origin Effects box called DemonFX.
No likee the directness of the ripoff.
 
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well, i own the original (as well as quite a few other Origin pedals (including the large box Cali76 comp, a Revival drive, The Super Vintage and the '64 pre) since i LOVE all of them and am a big fan of Simon's work and quality. i just thought it would be interesting to see if they could duplicate the CB at such a low price. I'm sure it doesn't have a relayed bypass for one, but i'll know tomorrow what it sounds like and report back.

Honestly I'm not inclined to blame customers wanting something that's affordable and delivers good sound, and yeah in your case that's moot anyway! It's really the brazenness of the makers in this co, who are inches away from putting out full-blown counterfeits, that bugs me.

All said, I'm curious how it stands up in expert hands so will follow that report.
 
Origin Effects Cali76

Which itself, is a ripoff of :

UREI / Universal Audio 1176
Surely you can see a difference between the two ...

Putting similar/the same functionality in a pedal versus a rack, and a manufacturer copying almost everything - look, feel, etc. - to the point where it's different (by look anyways) to tell them apart.
 
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Surely you can see a difference between the two ...

Putting similar/the same functionality in a pedal versus a rack, and a manufacturer copying almost everything - look, feel, etc. - to the point where it's different (by look anyways) to tell them apart.


Whichever one is paying a license to the Putnam family, takes the moral high ground in the clone market
 
Precisely. One may disagree with the ethical aspects of producing copies in this way, but that in itself doesn’t tell you the slightest thing about how such a product compares to the original in practice.

How much difference would there be in a blind test? I have no idea at all, and neither does anybody else until they conduct one.
JHS just did a video where they blind tested an expensive pedal to the $20 amazon copy. Even did the infamous Klon. With modern day industry, you're really just buying a brand for the name and bragging rights.
 
There's cloning a circuit, and then there's copying a pedal. This is a copy.
That being said I'm interested to hear some reviews. I have a Compact Deluxe already so I'm not going to dip my toes in the water myself.
EDIT: but now that I'm looking at their website there are a few other pedals I'd like to try :p
 
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well it arrived. here are my first impressions...............
picture with a flash:
Demon and OriginCB-01.jpg


picture without a flash:
Demon and OriginCB-02.jpg


after opening the box and taking the pedal out, the first thing that i noticed is that it weighs far less than the Origin. The Demon weighs 9.6oz and the Origin weighs 1lb 6 oz. The bypass switch is a relayed soft switch bypass on the Origin and the Demon has regular 3PDT clicking bypass. The Origin's fit and finish is much nicer (although the Demon doesn't look bad).

plugging them into a benchtop power supply they draw exactly 70ma each.

The LED on the Demon is just a status light and doesn't respond as a visual aid for the compression, whereas the jeweled status light on the Origin does.

Sonically, The Demon is very quiet and pretty transparent and of course the Origin is too. The Origin is capable of more compression than the Demon and at certain settings it's hard to tell that it's on or doing all that much.

I think that the Demon is worth the $73 shipped that I paid for it but if you're looking to replace the original, i think that you'd be disappointed.
 
well it arrived. here are my first impressions...............
picture with a flash:
View attachment 4720037

picture without a flash:
View attachment 4720039

after opening the box and taking the pedal out, the first thing that i noticed is that it weighs far less than the Origin. The Demon weighs 9.6oz and the Origin weighs 1lb 6 oz. The bypass switch is a relayed soft switch bypass on the Origin and the Demon has regular 3PDT clicking bypass. The Origin's fit and finish is much nicer (although the Demon doesn't look bad).

plugging them into a benchtop power supply they draw exactly 70ma each.

The LED on the Demon is just a status light and doesn't respond as a visual aid for the compression, whereas the jeweled status light on the Origin does.

Sonically, The Demon is very quiet and pretty transparent and of course the Origin is too. The Origin is capable of more compression than the Demon and at certain settings it's hard to tell that it's on or doing all that much.

I think that the Demon is worth the $73 shipped that I paid for it but if you're looking to replace the original, i think that you'd be disappointed.
Are you planning on opening it up? I'm curious if it's really class A ..
 
well it arrived. here are my first impressions...............
picture with a flash:
View attachment 4720037

picture without a flash:
View attachment 4720039

after opening the box and taking the pedal out, the first thing that i noticed is that it weighs far less than the Origin. The Demon weighs 9.6oz and the Origin weighs 1lb 6 oz. The bypass switch is a relayed soft switch bypass on the Origin and the Demon has regular 3PDT clicking bypass. The Origin's fit and finish is much nicer (although the Demon doesn't look bad).

plugging them into a benchtop power supply they draw exactly 70ma each.

The LED on the Demon is just a status light and doesn't respond as a visual aid for the compression, whereas the jeweled status light on the Origin does.

Sonically, The Demon is very quiet and pretty transparent and of course the Origin is too. The Origin is capable of more compression than the Demon and at certain settings it's hard to tell that it's on or doing all that much.

I think that the Demon is worth the $73 shipped that I paid for it but if you're looking to replace the original, i think that you'd be disappointed.
Thanks very much for taking the time to do this. Very useful comparison info. I think if you’re happy with it for the money, but also honest and realistic about the differences, that tells us what we need to know.Nice job, mate.
 
i'd also note that i'm sure that the weight difference is due to the Demonfx enclosure is made of aluminum and the Origin's is made of steel. Also the Demon's bypass is NOT a true bypass and doesn't pass signal without power (9 or 18 volts).
 
A quick google since I don't want to open mine:
Cali76 only smaller?

Looks like there is a lot more going on in the original.
besides the relayed bypass and status light/comp indicator, i'm not so sure. there's A LOT of tiny smd components on the Demon even though the Origin has two large PCBs that are stacked.

Demon and Cali CB-01.jpg
 
The tagline on their homepage is brilliant.

"Making products that look the same but are actually different"

Thanks for the review and gutshots, @johnk_10

I'm interested to know how close their Super Symmetry and Harmonic boosters are to the originals. Something tells me the gain redux LEDs on their Super Sym clone probably don't work.
 
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