How we research
The central claim of this site is a negative one: we have not played the gear. Here is what we do instead, and where it stops.
Last updated September 1, 2026
We have not played the gear on this site. There is no test bench here, no listening room, and no claim that there is. What we do instead is compile what manufacturers publish, read the manuals, do the arithmetic, and link the source for every figure so you can check the work rather than trust us.
That is a smaller claim than the sites promising twenty pedals tested this month, and it is one we can actually back. This page sets out exactly what the method is, what it can and cannot tell you, and where it stops.
01Why we say this at all
Almost every guitar-gear publication claims hands-on testing. The claim is universal, largely unverifiable, and often made by sites that also review kitchen equipment. When everybody says it, it stops carrying information.
Claiming it here would also be false. Fret & Fuzz is one person compiling published documentation, and inventing a test lab would be the same category of fabrication as inventing a price or a customer review. So we say the true thing, and then we do the work that we can actually do properly.
02What we actually do
- Start from the manufacturer's own documentation. Product pages, specification tabs and PDF manuals. BOSS publishes current draw, input and output impedance, dimensions and weight for every compact pedal. EarthQuaker publishes impedance and clipping topology. Strymon publishes minimum supply current and converter resolution.
- Record what is published and what is not. Ibanez publishes the TS9's 8 mA draw and does not publish its impedance. MXR and Pro Co publish almost no electrical data at all. Where a figure does not exist, the page says so rather than filling the gap.
- Do the arithmetic that follows. Current draws add up into a power budget. Power ratios convert into decibels. Attenuation levels convert into perceived loudness. None of that needs a lab, and almost nobody publishes it.
- Reason from the topology. A circuit that clips inside an op-amp feedback loop behaves differently from one that clips hard to ground, and both behave differently from one that runs a clean path in parallel. Those are structural facts, not listening impressions.
- Link the source for every number. Every spec table on this site names where its figures came from, with the URL.
- Say who each product is wrong for. Every shortlist names at least one pick we tell you not to buy, and every head-to-head states who each product is a bad fit for.
03What the method is good at
Anything decided by a published number or a structural fact. That covers more of the real buying decisions than it sounds like it should.
| Question | Can we answer it? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Will this pedal run on my power supply? | Yes, definitively | Published current draw against published per-output ratings |
| Why does my fuzz behave differently on my board? | Yes | Published input impedance and the buffer in front of it |
| How much quieter will a half-power switch make my amp? | Yes | Power ratio converted to decibels — about 3 dB |
| What is the actual difference between these two overdrives? | Largely | Clipping topology and tone-stack behavior |
| How much delay time do I need for a dotted eighth at 120 bpm? | Yes | Arithmetic |
| Which of these two sounds better? | No | That requires listening, and we have not listened |
| Does this reissue sound like a 1979 original? | No | That requires both units and measurements |
| Is this pedal well built? | No | That requires handling it over time |
04Where the method stops, precisely
There are three kinds of claim you will not find on this site, and it is worth being explicit about each.
- Tonal verdicts framed as findings. We will tell you that a Tube Screamer cuts bass and boosts mids, because the circuit does that. We will not tell you it sounds warmer than a Blues Driver, because that is a listening judgment we have not made.
- Build-quality assessments. We can note that a budget pedal saves money on the footswitch and jacks, because that is where budget hardware differs categorically. We cannot tell you that a specific unit will fail, because we have not used one.
- Comparisons between units we have not measured. Whether a clone sounds identical to an original requires both on a bench. We will describe what the topology does and stop there.
05How prices work here
Prices render only from a live price data layer, refreshed from Amazon's API. Where there is no live figure, the button reads “Check price” rather than showing a number we remember from last month. A stale price is worse than no price: it is a specific, checkable claim that happens to be wrong.
At launch that layer is empty, because the API credentials are not yet provisioned on the account. So every buy button currently reads “Check price” and links to Amazon. That is the correct behavior rather than a gap — the alternative would have been to type in numbers, which is the exact thing this policy exists to prevent.
06How picks get chosen
By what the product does, judged against what the page is for. A roundup of pedal-platform amps is judged on headroom and flat response; a roundup of amps for metal is judged on preamp gain structure and low-end control. The same amp can win one and be explicitly rejected in the other, and it is.
Commission does not enter into it. Every shortlist names at least one pick we tell you to skip, several pages recommend spending less than you were planning to, and one recommends checking whether you need the product at all before buying it. The editorial policy sets out the rules in full.
07Corrections
If a figure on this site is wrong, we want to know. The most likely errors are a manufacturer revising a specification, a product being discontinued, or a source page moving. All three happen, and none of them announce themselves.
Send it to us with the page and the figure. Corrections get priority over everything else, and when a page changes materially its last-updated date changes with it.
08Who writes this
Scooter M. An enthusiast who is genuinely into this: I read the manuals, compile the published specs and do the math. No lab coat, no test bench, and no credential I would be embarrassed to be asked about. More on the About page.