Boss ST-2 Power Stack Overdrive Pedal Reviews

I run 2 of these. #1 gain at 9:00. #2 gain at 11:30…. "1 is a great edge of breakup sound. #2 a good crunch. #1+#2 is hard rock all the way. Very pleased with these pedals. So much range and versatility that is often not highlighted in demos.

I run a Marshall origin 20 with this pedal if you know the origin line they don't have much gain. The knob on the right will get you from plexi to jcm 800 to jcm 2000 tones. I highly recommend this pedal to anyone that doesn't have a high gain amp. And if you do take it to the next level!

This is the tone i looked for. That EL-84 tone. The touch sensitive ringing Overdrive. 80s power metal on this thing is killer.

Have been pleasantly surprised pedal is not a harsh unusable distortion pedal. Really never have been disappointed with any Boss pedals, the only slight downside is at higher volumes you will need to engage noise gate. I would recommend acts well with all the pedals on my board. I would also thank Sweetwater for all the great service, good communication and fast shipping.

Best peddle ever made hands down 100% power stack rules!!!!!

This is another home run for Boss. It can get very dirty, metal tones, and looser, almost blues driver type tones. It is a very flexible pedal.

I bought one yrs ago then sold it and realky regretted it. Now I decided to give it a go again and I'm glad I did. This pedal really rocks especially in 10-12:00 range for its gain side. Whole lotta 70's and 80's in that range and gives the boutique pedals a run for its money anything after 2:00 is too noisy for me but since its built like a tank it rocks hard enough to he back on my board again for good...

If you are looking for the sound of big 100 watt amp stacks from the 80's without actually owning such a rig I would urge you to try one of these out. Is it transparent? NO-This effect will blanket your tone in its own matrix. Is it an overdrive? NO-but let me say that it could be as I found it very responsive to turning the volume down on my guitar which made this pedal respond in a very amp-like manner. It would not be my go-to effect for low-gain/non-dirty tones. It isn't an everything to everyone effect just as the amp I suspect it emulates (a modded JCM 800) would not be what folks would want for pristine clean tones. This effect is for the rockin' as that's what its namesake tells you before you get on board. There is a good range of gain from low gain classic rock to early metal and just one more past that. So the only cons I would throw at it is that for an "amp in a box" pedal I did not find it as tonally responsive when adjusting down the tonez on my guitar. Also, I found that I had a much bigger smile on my face when running this with a humbucker loaded guitar than with single coils which didn't have the same glory to my ears. Also, I think Boss may have done themselves one better by at least having the gain knob go from "1" to "11" instead of "crunch/drive/ultra" which should better be thought of as crunch/lead/seek & destroy if you know what I am laying down there. Ultra?? Still have the love here but you guys may be doing a throwback to the 80's when DOD used to put those goofy names on their pedals??

What can I say, I wanted a pedal to really push my small combos to the next level and the st-2 delivers! But I will caution you if you have a mid to high gain amp and you just want a slight boost you'll have to dial the amps gain back a bit and lower the Sound knob on the pedal, as things can get really hot fast! It's also great to use in the clean channel to add another stage of distortion to your amp. If you have a high gain amp and dial this thing hot it's gonna sound horrible as other user describe, just use the dang knobs properly and you can reach the level you want intelligently! The circuitry has a unique tone to it that can truely make your amp sing!(if you know what your doing....). Seriously there are a lot of boutique pedal makers these days but I like to stick with the tried and true, I've been owning and using boss pedals for 20 years now and I have no regrets with any purchase of their products!

I personally love this pedal. I found a Distortion pedal that is perfect for my tone. The Crunch sound that I love the most. Guns 'N Rose songs or AC/DC songs Only problem is when put it on Ultra, it gets so noisy. Put a Noise Gate or something so that will eliminate the noise, and hums.

Great sounding pedal. Been through quite a few trying to find this sound. OCD was close what I like but this is it. Very "Marshall" sounding and definitely an underrated pedal. Try it.

The range of tone with just the sound knob is amazing. Over the top marshall plexi in the ultra position, and classic rock/blues drive as you back it down to crunch mode. A great pedal for the price. Im buying two more and presetting each one with different tones.

Después de probar una gran cantidad de pedales de distorsión el ST 2 es lo que siempre busqué.

I have tried numerous distortion pedals. After listening to some YouTube demos . I was sold. When I received the pedal and tried the different settings . I knew , I had made the right choice. It really does have a nice amp sounding overdrive. You can hear the notes pronounced individually at all settings. You can get a nice crunch for blues to that rocking saturation. Highly recommend this pedal. You want be disappointed.

Awesome box , gives that classic sound and then some....

All out and Sound level dimed
Can't deny -has great high velocity
Solo characteristics
Keeper for sure

I like it. Took me a while. I play obscene amount of cascading OD at low volume. It adds brilliant tube-like character to a flat sound. Better than BOSS Bassman, I think.

Just what I was looking for,great when doing chord work.

I needed an inexpensive distortion pedal that would give me some flexibility and a thick, rich power-soaked stack tone. This unit does the trick, although things can get a bit noisy with the 'sound' knob turned all the way up. This knob behaves like a gain knob in some ways although it's marketed as the knob that allows you to dial in amp flavors.

Real amps also get noisy when you turn up the gain, so don't let that dissuade you from giving one of these a try. I love it for how it gives me that big monster sound from a fairly small amp. Play with one and see if you like it. Personally, I have not found anything better at anywhere near the price.

It depends how you have your board set up. I didn't like at first. Now I've grown to love. I have at end of effects chain with Cascading OD. It's noisy and gives my OD a fat sound you try to squeeze from higher powered amps. I have several boxes I mix around with. I do not like digital Amp sims. Waste of time. This box is similar to BOSS ME-50 stack selection. I don't like it on ME-50, but the box is OK. Treble has a very good sweep to calm things down.

I struggled with what score to give the Power Stack, but am ultimately giving it 4 stars. I love the concept of a "Marshall-in-a-box" modeling pedal - it's a popular trend among boutique designers right now, and BOSS offers a good one at under $100.

But there were just a few problems with it that ultimately led me to sell it for something else. First, unlike the excellent BC-2 Combo Drive, the Power Stack really doesn't do clean tones. I suppose you could turn it to Crunch and back off the guitar volume, but that's not really the point. In that sense, it's more of a specialty overdrive pedal, as oppose to a true model of a Marshall cabinet.

Also, while I liked the 2 band EQ, the lack of a "mids" control is a major problem. I guess you could describe the mids as "scooped", but it sounds like a wah pedal fixed at an awkward position, and you can't change that. It's subjective, for sure, but you'll either like the voicing of this pedal or you wont.

Finally, some of the higher gain settings were unusable due to feedback. Even with noise suppression, I had trouble going past 2 o' clock on the Sound knob.

With the right setup, I think this could be an excellent pedal for some people, but it didn't work out for me. For Plexi tones, check out the Wampler Plexi Drive. For higher gain "JCM" Marshall sounds, try the MI Audio Crunchbox.

Moving your 4x12 cabs and your heavey amps three to five times a week can start to wear on you. I needed to down size my rig without compromizing my sound! I was suprized to find it would give me my british rythym sound, british lead sound, american rythym sound, and american lead sound with all the sustain that you could ever want!! The power stack also responds to your picking dynamics like a real tube amp.Now i have a choice, Big rig, little rig,same sound, Thanks Boss, now i can enjoy playing music more.

This pedal is replacing my Boss Blues Driver. To my ears the power stack pedal is a blues driver on sterroids. I set everything at 12 oclock and pretty happy with the results, better tone than the blues driver set to full gain. I would like to give this pedal 5 stars but its a bit hissy at performance volume and turning it up full bore ultra makes the amp squeel. Hoping for a mod to fix that.

I expected more. With all the hype about Boss pedals being the proa's choice. They are not that well made. I tried it on several amps from Marshall plexi's to Laney AOR and lionhearts. It seemed to work the best on lower end solid state amps. Yes it does kind of give you that "stack" sound. However there are better pedals out there.

The boss power stink review guy nailed it. I bought this since I was looking for that jcm800 in a box tone. It literally sounds like glass breaking, or glass shards going into your ears. While I was trying it out, the band I was playing with at the time severely disliked it as well. This ones really a fail by boss, actually surprised they're still making it. But hey if people are still paying for them then why not lol. There's a lot of better options out there (not that that's setting the bar high), even in this price range that have much higher quality sound.

Have you ever stepped into an electrified puddle with glass shards in it? Well that's pretty much what this sounded like. For the beginning years of playing guitar, I was a plug and play guy. Just natural amp overdrive was all I used. Anywho, I downsized, got clean fender amps, and started getting pedals. This was my first distortion/od pedal. I used it for a long time. It wasn't until I just went out there and experienced as many different pedals as I could, that I realized just how terrible this pedal is. Noisy, glassy, harsh, I could go on and on. Trust me, I wouldn't steer you in the wrong direction. If you're looking for a good distortion pedal with within this price range, definitely check out the MXR 78 Badass Distortion. It's like 70 or 80 bucks on here and it sounds pretty good for a pedal in this price range. Care to spend 50 bucks more, take a look at the barber electronics Direct Drive. Phenomenal plexi style over drive. It's Awesome. Just not that dynamic which is why I replaced it with a TrueTone VSXO. Now that ones a killer. I also have TrueTones Jeckyll n Hyde. That one is also really awesome. All these are approx 179. They're more than the Barber Electronics Direct Drive but you get a lot of bang for your buck. The Boss Power Stack is junk. Has no place on my board or anyone elses lol. I wouldn't even give it to someone who was just beginning to play. This is a real review. Check out some of the other one's I mentioned and you'll be happier. Thanks.