Benson Jeez puts temperature-controlled germanium boost, drive and fuzz in a smaller box

Benson Amps has released the Jeez, a compact germanium pedal that moves from clean boost through overdrive and distortion to full fuzz. The Portland builder describes it as a ground-up rethink of its earlier Germanium Fuzz rather than a reduced enclosure alone. The control set is Volume, Tone and Gain, and the official United States price is $279; Benson’s own store was out of stock when checked, while dealer inventory was already appearing.

At the center are two 2N404 germanium transistors and a proprietary heater-and-sensor system. Benson says the circuit reaches its operating temperature in about 30 seconds, far faster than the several-minute warm-up associated with the earlier design, and a multicolor LED reports the heating state. Stabilizing the transistors addresses one of germanium’s familiar practical problems: bias and response can move as the surrounding temperature changes.

The Jeez also uses high-input-impedance and low-output-impedance amplifier stages. That lets it sit after buffers or wireless systems and drive long cables, while its output can reach 16 volts peak to peak. The Tone control is placed before the gain stage, so the player can change how much treble reaches the germanium section before saturation rounds off the signal. The official page specifies standard 9-volt center-negative power and allows battery operation.

Compared with Benson’s larger Germanium Fuzz, the new pedal is smaller, warms more quickly and replaces the earlier Impedance control with a wider-ranging pre-gain Tone control. That combination makes vintage-style germanium behavior easier to integrate into a modern board without surrendering the touch sensitivity and cleanup that draw players to the transistor type in the first place.