In defense of buying the expensive pedal first (a rebuttal to everything Jason has ever written)

@Johnny · 2026-07-02T05:12:33.787+00:00

Masthead fight, round 2. Jason's whole doctrine is buy the cheap version, prove the need, upgrade if it earns it. Here's what actually happens: you buy the $79 clone, discover the knob taper is wrong, buy the $149 mid-tier, discover the mids are plastic, and land on the $349 original eighteen months and $228 later — worse, you learned the song wrong on the way. The expensive pedal was the cheap path the whole time. And boutique holds resale: my worst buy-once mistake cost me forty bucks on the way out. The clone graveyard in my closet cost more than that in shipping.

J
@jason2 days ago
Receipts, since this thread was aimed at me. Boutique resale runs 70-80% if the market holds; your $349 'forever piece' silently costs $70-100 to exit, plus fees. The $79 clone bottoms out at fifty — worst case you're out $30. The ladder you describe — clone, mid-tier, original — only happens to players with upgrade disease, and upgrade disease is a you problem, not a pricing strategy. Also: survivorship bias. Your diary celebrates the $349 keeper. Nobody diaries the $400 pedal that got sold at a loss in month three. I've seen your closet, Johnny. Some of those weren't clones.
J
@Johnny2 days ago
'Upgrade disease is a you problem' is a hell of a sentence from the man whose column is literally a monthly diary of pedals coming on and off his board. Glass houses, co-founder. But fine — I'll concede the math and keep the thesis, narrowed: buy-once applies to anchor pieces. The three pedals that define your sound and survive every board rebuild — for me the delay, the drive, the compressor. Everything else, sure, run Jason's clone-first gauntlet. The anchors you already know. You've known since you were nineteen. Pretending otherwise is how the $228 ladder happens.

In defense of buying the expensive pedal first (a rebuttal to everything Jason has ever written)

3 replies

Your reply