Nothing wrong with SMD.... but I feel there is something wrong with charging people $200 ++ for an SMD build. I imagine the markup he has put on these is ridiculous.
I don't see any issues with the pricing (which is $279, I think). Normally I might, but the Klon is a special case. If you *know* that a whole scad of devoted idiots are begging to pay big bucks, it is your obligation not to let them down. If he charged $150 for it, people would complain it lost its mojo.
If the build quality was shit, I'd be more inclined to think the pricing was foul. But it looks like a very well engineered pedal on the inside.
My Tayda 1n34a's look EXACTLY like those.
A lot of germanium diodes look exactly like that. I have some 1N120s that look just like those, and some older 1N60s that look really similar. I don't think there was a definitive standard on the package decoration on germanium, so you might get very different looks for the same part number.
In other words, I wouldn't read too much into the look of those diodes. They could be any of a dozen or more specific part numbers. And honestly, I don't think it much matters anyway.
