The Klon Centaur is a  developed by Bill Finnegan between 1990 and 1994. The pedals were made manually by Finnegan. The Centaur is characterized as a "transparent" overdrive, meaning it adds gain to the signal without significantly altering the tone of the guitar.About 8,000 units were built between 1994 and 2000.  praised the clear, uncolored tone of the boosted signal. The circuit had unique characteristics, most noticeably the use of an IC MAX1044 . The voltage converter drives 18 volts to the  which is the core of the circuit; at this voltage the response of the amplifier is different than at 9 volt, since its  depends on the voltage supply. Higher the voltage supply, higher the order of  the operational amplifier will generate, and more metallic the sound. Depending on the position of the knobs, the overdrive effect could be created in the  instead by the circuit itself. The circuit had two   to perform clipping (see ). The "gain" knob is a double  (a "dual-ganged gain pot"), which controls bass and middle frequencies. Among the guitarists who use the Klon Centaur are , () and , as well as ,  (),  (; ) and .  of  once said, describing his Klon "...It's an amp in a box. No more worries in the world of 'amp du jour' about overdrive tone. It will be OK. The Centaur will take care of it..."  Thaddeus Hogarth, a guitar professor at , describes the tone of the Klon as "dynamic...[it] works in combination with your guitar sound..."