This $69 overdrive pedal nearly had Andertons fooled in a blindfold test with a real Klon Centaur

Nux Horseman
(Image credit: Nux)

"Categorically the most overhyped pedal in the universe ever," says Lee Anderton about the Klon Centaur. Is that the fault of its designer, Bill Finnegan? We'd say absolutely not, but the limited amount of Klon overdrive pedals in circulation is certainly driving the prices into the $4,000 region for even the silver variety. So the rest of us search for alternatives.

UK retailer Andertons sell a lot of the leading Klones, and have done their own shootouts in the past to weigh them up. But the £55/$69 Nux Horseman wasn't part of that, so now in a special episode on Nux pedals heading off against their famous inspirations, the Horseman is taking on the Klon in a blindfold test.

The mini size is more like leading Klone pedal, the Wampler Tumnus (and with the fawn motif), the Nux Horseman has the added advantage of having two modes called 'Gold' and 'Silver'. The debate about whether there are differences between gold and silver Klons is another matter but some players will use one on the Nux for single-coil guitars and another for humbuckers.

As Lee Anderton observes, the Gold mode seems to offer less gain on the Horseman. And co-presenter Danish Pete spots the real thing after some deliberation but it's close for him. And that is high praise for the affordable Nux. 

Check it out at Andertons, Musician's Friend and Thomann 

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.