Tsakalis AudioWorks Crams Two Marshall-Style Overdrives Into the Room #40

June 8, 2021 · 3 sources

Tsakalis AudioWorks announced the Room #40, a compact dual-voiced preamp, overdrive and distortion pedal that puts a set of classic Marshall head voices on a pedalboard. The pedal is inspired by the drive sounds of the Marshall Super Lead, Super Bass, JMP and JCM800 heads, with JFET transistors standing in for the tubes of the original amps¹.

Guitar World described it as a full-range "Marshall in a box," with each unit hand-built in the boutique brand's workshop in Athens, Greece². Guitar Pedal X noted that the Room #40 covers most of the Marshall amp voicings, listing the Plexi Super Lead (1959/1957), Plexi Super Bass (1992), the JMP series and the JCM800 (2203)³.

The pedal's feature set as announced:

• Two footswitches: one true bypass switch that engages the pedal, and a second that triggers a boost mode²
• A gain boost whose level is set with a trim pot, accessible through a hole in the back of the enclosure¹
• True bypass switching¹
• JFET-based circuitry replacing the tubes of the original amp heads¹

The Room #40 launched priced at €240 equivalent and was available from the Tsakalis AudioWorks Webstore at the time of the announcement³. For players comparing overdrive and preamp pedals, it joined a field of Marshall-style pedals that includes Catalinbread's Dirty Little Secret, which Catalinbread updated with a Deluxe Edition positioned against the Room #40¹.