Johnson EAD-2 Echo Analog Delay

It an ok sound. This is a very cheap pedal, basically a boss knockoff. Four knobs, stomp switch, 9v power. I think there's an internal trim pot too.

I'm using a Orange AD15/10 with a Gibson SG w/ EMG 81/85s and a Fender JV Strat w/ tex-mexes and a Dimarzio Tone Zone S in the bridge. Even when off, you can usually hear the effect going, at about a quarter of it volume when its on. I recently got a bypass pedal to fix that, but I'm going to replace this pedal with the MXR Carbon Copy or the old school Analog Delay when I have the cash. The echo sound always a little dirty even when the quality knob is up to full, but clean is not what I'm looking for, so that's ok for me. Got enough delay and repeats as well, but the sound can get really messy when you turn up the repeats past 11 o'clock.

I'm not sure I can depend on this thing. It turns itself on randomly when I power up my pedalboard, the crummy bypass, and the cheap construction of the board/switch, I wouldn't trust this thing much farther than around the house.

Never dealt with them.

I'm going to replace this thing, but if you need a cheap delay fast, I guess you might want to get one of these. Personally if it broke or I lost it, I would even regret it.

The ease of use is fine, once you find the right setting on the internal pot that determines the maximum delay length. I take no credit for this at all - there are other places on the net (even on Harmony Central, for differently branded by similar pedals) that tell you how to do this:

Set Delay time to max, Regen to max, and both Mix and Tape Quality to 12:00 / middle. Take off the bottom / back cover, and locate the white pot that can be turned with a small screwdriver. Start by turning it about a quarter-turn counter clockwise, then test the pedal - you should get a much, much longer max delay time. If you get no delay at all, or if the sound is mangled / distorted, you turned too far. Repeat this process until you feel you have a good, long delay without a huge loss of quality.

After doing this, I was FAR more satisfied with this pedal and find it extremely easy to get cool sounds out of. I give it a 6 for ease of use, though, because it was not inherently easy to find out about this "hidden" pot.

Once you have it dialed as noted above, I think it has great sound quality. As many other folks note, it is not clean like a more expensive digital delay, but as one poster said "one man's muddiness is another man's warmth". I love the sound. The rest of the rig I am using here is an original RAT and a 15W Ibanez ToneBlaster practice Amp, with a Teisco Del Ray or an Ibanez GAX70 (obviously the Teisco is the cooler guitar, but I was young when I got mine and it has been ABUSED).

Don't know. Just got it. Seems pretty durable - the pots don't feel any cheaper than my other pedals / gear (i.e. they feel about like the pots on my Behringer mixers).

Apparently, Johnson Electronics is a big mystery, and this pedal is released identically under several different brands.

I used to play post-punk distorto-drone; now I play post-psych no-tempo jangle-drone. This pedal works for both. Note that I overpaid for this (according to what other folks say they paid) since I bought it used and paid more than other folks did new. Dammit. Still, I feel like I got a great value.

This pedal is pretty simple... It has these things called knobs on it and you turn them to make new sounds...... To turn it on you press your foot down on the rubber square... You have to be retarded not to know how to operate an FX pedal...

Hmm... When playing with guitar, I tend to go for 80's Indie, Twee-Pop, and Shoegaze, as well as Grindcore and Death/Heavy Metal stuff... Honestly, It's not the best pedal in the world for this... It really is kind of muddy, it kind of drowns everything out... But When I'm not playing guitar I'm sticking everything else into it and making noise, which it's good for... But just about any pedal is good for noise... Twisting the "TIME" knob gives a really neat "WEOORWOOSHHURRRREEOOO" sound I like... I wish it were a bit cleaner though...

Oh jeez... It's buit like a Boss and I swear, I have literally cut all the battery/DC wires trying to add a voltage starve (this thing is crazy when the batteries are dying) Alas, I couldn't achieve the same effect adding a pot between wires, so I twisted, soldered and taped and the wires back together, and It's still working perfectly... I've spilled soda on... dropped it on the floor (carpeted, mind you), run electrical feedback through it (for noise... putting it in a mixer feedback loop... known to ruin mixers...) and it has not affected this pedal at all... Great quality for such a cheap pedal! I wouldn't use a backup because I doubt I'd NEED one... assuming I didn't throw it at a brick wall.

Never dealt with them... I have no idea... Probably crappy like every other mass-production company... I have read somewhere that Johnson is a division of Boss or something, but I can't say for sure.

Great for the price, as long as you're not someone who's really concerned about tone and clarity... Get a digital delay if you want that.

It takes some tweaking to find the good sounds, but there *are* good sounds in this cheap, little box. The manual should explain everything decently enough, though it has the direction wrong on the 'quality' knob (clockwise cleans it up). Compared to other delays, it's pretty easy to use.

As previously noted, the pedal comes out of the box with only about 300 ms of delay, and you can open it up & adjust the trim pot to allow longer delay times. This is a must, IMO, and a very easy adjustment. I dunno why they just don't do this at the factory, even to add up to 500 ms like the ads promise. At the very least they could have included the trim pot in the manual.

You'll also want to take a toothpick and some nail polish to the 'mix' & 'repeat' knobs, as finding the sweet spots can be touchy. It took me about 40 minutes at one rehearsal to get a good feel for the effect.

I really don't try to sound like any particular artists, but I suppose my setup is somewhat old-school.
For a long time, I was pretty basic -- guitar ->wah->fuzz-> tube amp. I recently started using delay when mastering recordings & wanted to incorporate one into my rig & at $35 this was an easy enough experiment. I primarily play a doublecut LP-style Hamer (w/Gibson pickups) into a modded Crybaby into a throbak Stone Bender fuzz into the EAD into a modded Fender Blues Junior amp. I sometimes play a Fender duo-sonic or a cheap tele. At some points I like that Jimmy Page-style slow slapback or a Motown-y triplet-type delay on a slide-off arpeggio & sometimes I like to turn the mix knob really low & just have the effect transparently thicken things & here & there I turn up the mix for some walls of Thurston Moore.

I think it sounds as good as any other analog delay (& the 'quality' knob is a noble try & a decent way of competing with digital competitors like the danelectro reel echo). The 'quality' knob takes some monkeying with ... I leave mine around 12 o'clock. *great* space-loop noise when noodling the speed knob while playing. No audible tone-suck when off.

It's built like a boss pedal on the outside, but the circuit board is a bit flimsy (the trim pot is a plastic phillips-type screw knob, whereas nicer boxes have metal pots). It's velcro'd to my pedal board, so I don't think it's in any danger. I'd use it without backup, sure. More reliable than a DOD, not quite up there with Boss, MXR, Ibanez, etc ...

Never dealt with Johnson. I also own their pedal board & it suits my needs alright.

I play in a working original garage-pop band that goes from 'Mats-style trash to shoegazer to lo-fi indie to 80s-style new wave to cowpunk and just about everywhere else. I've played for 23 years. I own about a dozen stompboxes but only use a few in my rig. It's an OK match for our sound, though our drummer teases me & asks when I'm buying a violin bow.
If stolen or lost, I may buy another one. I'll eventually replace this with an EH deluxe memory man & give this one to our other guitarist.

Has 4 Knobs to tweak the sound: delay time, repeats, FX mix and a "quality" knob which is stated to imitate a tape echo sound. It's more than most other delay pedals have.

I bought it off ebay, new, for 30 EUR, was just curious. But it sounds pretty weak.
Just like others said, the "quality" knob doesn't let me dial in a "good" sound quality, it always sounds grainily distorted. Turn it to the left, and it becomes pretty dull, but still grainy. This also diminishes the volume of the delayed sound (the repeats). The mix knob works more as on/off for the repeats. And in bypass, the repeats are still slightly audible.
However, when used with crunch and distortion sound, it can be used, because - well - it distorts too, it sounds decent.
Ah, yes. It is stated that this one has 600ms of delay, but the analog BBD chips inside tell me there is onlyaround 200ms. But! it is at least analog :-)

I've had it only for a day, so no road test available yet. But I was surprised how well built they were regarding their price (I also baought the Tuner and the chorus, see other reviews). Die cast aluminum housing, metal pots screwed to the housing, I would say, it's comparable to a standard 80's Ibanez quality. However I had to tighten some screws so I give only 9 points.

never dealt with them.

For me it is useless. Don't buy it. Really. However I will keep it as a component deliverant for other projects or maybe some time I will find the schematics for this one in the netto fix all the "errors" it has.
It gets a 4 for its build quality.

It's really a digital delay pretending to be analog

Couldnt get a decent delay sound out of it if the world depended on it. The knobs are easy to rotate, so I guess its very easy to use. I dont know who the hell would ever want to use it, but if you did, it wouldnt be hard by any means.

Ibanez AXS32 and Ampeg late-70's VT-40. Sounds like garbage. I havent found any real use for it. I guess it would work for slapback echo, but the quality is really wretched.

Seems pretty solid. Kinda goofy looking, though. Made of metal.

Dear Johnson: what the hell are you supposed to do with this thing?
I dont know. I havent tried.

Bottom of the trash can of delay pedal goodness. Dont buy it.

Just for the record, the idea of being able to hear ONLY the delay is very useful. Send the delay only to a different effect , like an octaver ( a Y cord works) and then mix the result back with the pre-delay sound, or use a second amplifier. You can sound like 2 guitars, and even work out canon arrangements. (like singing in rounds)

It's equipped with four controls: Mix, Delay Time, Repeats, Tape Quality.
It's very difficult to dial in a mix setting that the original signal is still strong enough not to be overwhelmed by the delay signal.
Other than that, handling is very easy.

I wasn't able to dial in a non distorted echo sound. Maybe my stock PUs in my Gibson SG Gothic are two strong - don't know.
Fiddling with the repeats knob brought me to feedback wonderland. Pretty funny sounds can be achieved.
The tape quality is really useless - it's nothing more than a low-pass-filter that chops of all highs and a huge amount of hiss.
But I think this could be converted to a good sounding delay; it shares nearly the same components as all the raved analog delays: 2x JRC4558D, 1x SA571, 1x 3101 BBD driver, 2x 3208 BBDs.
It has the same number of BBD-stages as all the other stompbox delays.
So I'll try to convert it to a Boss DM-2 and cut the useless tape quality control.

Overall it's just too distorted and hissy to sound good.

Solid metal box, variable resistors with metal shaft. Good jacks - it seems pretty reliable.

Don't know - haven't dealt with them.

This is my first experience with analog delay. I'd say it's pretty much a hype - but then I never heard a Boss or Ibanez analog delay. I'll try to convert this piece of distortion-delay to a Boss analog delay.
But it's ok for testing and fun.

This is a followup to my last review of the Johnson EAD-2 Delay. I sent the first one back, hoping to get a second Johnson delay that had a properly functioning "delay volume" knob. Guess what? The second one had the exact same problem. Perhaps this is a design flaw? Very strange. When you set the delay volume knob all the way to the right, you can't even hear the initial note you pluck, but rather ONLY screaming delayed echoes (which sound great...but where is that initial note!) This is supposed to be a tape-like delay. Did old tape delays work like this? I've never had the chance to play with one.

Also, interestingly, the second delay pedal I got from Johnson had a brighter (crisper, but less warm) tone. I actually like the first one better!

Believe it or not, I am happy with this thing overall. The delay volume knob is simply a "set it and leave it there" knob. No tweakability with this function.

I set it on a sound I like last night and left it. For $45.00, I really like this little guy, quirks and all.