This week I received a quite low-priced Coron HD-520 Heavy Distortion in good optical condition and with the original box.
The Japanese brand Coron has first been copying the MXR effects in the late '70s and then in the '80s they have had two pedal series that look like genuine products. Our dear fuzzbuzzfuzz told me that he liked the re-branded Chorus from this last series that was marketed under different names, just as the pedal series from Aria, Daphon, etc.
These units are a bit wider and longer than BOSS pedals, but they are quite flat. They have the same switches as BOSS pedals, so they have some sort of buffered FET switching. The buffer sound is terrible. Worst - bypass - ever! Completely muffled and dull. Putting a pedal with good sounding buffered bypass before it is a solution and a must. And then this certain distortion sounds terrible, too. It makes my 50W Marshall tube amp sound like those cheap and bad sounding 10W amps that come in no-name electric guitar pedal bundles. To quote Laurie: "It sounds like arse." Definitely one of the worst sounding pedals that I have ever tried. It might very well be that other models from this series are better, but this one is absolutely underwhelming and I cannot recommend it at all. Nice looking '80s unit, but utterly useless.
One of the battery contacts was corroded, so I took a metal strip of a loose-leaf binder to replace it. That doesn't look too great, but it has full contact again. The build quality is overall really good. The pedal has a full metal enclosure, only the battery compartment and battery lid are made of plastic.
