Behringer’s Centaur Drive, a $69 clone of the legendary Klon Centaur overdrive pedal, has officially turned the world crazy, with people now selling it online for silly money – including one listed for over $2,000.
Whether anyone would be crazy enough to buy one at that price remains to be seen, but it is indicative of… well something. It is certainly the latest turn in the unfolding drama that is the Centaur Overdrive.
This is one of a string of Behringer releases inspired by classic stompboxes of yore that sailed close to the wind as far as originality was concerned.
This was an exacting clone of Bill Finnegan’s Klon Centaur. It had the gold metal enclosure, the oxblood coloured knobs, the mythical beast illustration – and, in case it wasn’t obvious, it even had “Centaur” in its name.
As on 30 May, we could consider that officially too close to the wind, as Finnegan sued against Behringer’s parent company, Music Tribe, alleging that Behringer’s Centuar Overdrive “blatantly infringes upon specific intellectual property” owned by Finnegan’s company, Klon LLC.
“For the record, I have never been consulted in any way about this pedal, it has never been authorised by me,” Finnegan wrote, on Instagram.
Finnegan posted a link to his lawyers’ court filing, accusing Behringer of trademark and trade dress infringement, false advertising, and false designation of origin.
You can still find the Behringer Centaur Overdrive for sale. Thomann, Sweetwater and Andertons are among the major retailers to still list the unit – but they are all out of stock, promising more units on the way.
Enter, the scalpers – or maybe just people listing it for a laugh. After all, can you really be serious when listing this drive pedal on eBay for $1,500/$2,036.70?
Okay, this is an extreme example. But you can find it listed for $1,000, for $695, $749… And so on. One eBay listing – $500 or best offer – explains the pricing rationale as thus, “Listings are getting taken down everywhere, so grab it before it disappears.”
This is not the first time that the market for a stompbox has overheated. Some might even point to the market for the original Klon – juiced by the fact the likes of Jeff Beck, John Mayer et al all swore by it – as being dysfunctional. You could buy two Custom Shop Les Pauls for the money that some people are asking for it.
Josh Scott of JHS Pedals jokingly listed the first ever Klon Centaur online for $500,000 on Reverb. Scott would also play his part in another extreme pricing event, and would later come to regret declaring the DigiTech Bad Monkey as an underrated – and underpriced – overdrive pedal. People, and prices, went nuts. Scott even made a T-shirt about it, and recommended four super-cheap Bad Monkey alternatives.
What’s the lesson here? There’s no lesson. Joe Bonamassa says “something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it” but even so there are limits. No way is a drive pedal worth $2,000.
