Pedal Myths - Does running an opamp based pedal with diode clipping at 18v increase its headroom?
This is one I've gotten a lot recently. If a pedal is using diodes for clipping, like in the case of an ODR-1 which is actually using both feedback clipping and diodes to ground, running it at 18v doesn't do a ton. There are parts of the circuit that benefit from the extra supply voltage but the clipping is still gonna happen when the diodes being to conduct. There are some situations where the extra supply voltage would lead to a noticeable difference in sound, I'm imagining an instance where the pedal is being slammed by a signal that would cause it to distort at the input buffer stage prior to the clipping diodes but on its own as you can see there isn't much of a difference in tone as you go down in supply voltage until you get to the minimum voltage requirements for the opamp itself or where the signal can't be amplified above the diodes fV. If anybody has any other examples they can think of please chime in or if there's some better way to test this sort of thing