when the echoplex® ep-3 came out. guitar players were hooked by the way its preamp sweetened up their sound. soon. the ep-3 made its way onto the records of top guitar players—from jimmy page to eddie van halen and eric johnson—as much for its tone conditioning ability as its tape echo effect. now. you can put the ep-3’s legendary secret sauce right on your pedalboard. dunlop’s ep101 echoplex preamp recreates the magic of the ep-3’s front end. featuring a field-effect transistor (fet) just like the original and following the exact same signal path. the gain control allows you to boost your signal by up to +11db. with light asymmetrical clipping at higher settings for a bit of nice organic grit. the echoplex preamp runs on standard 9-volt power and contains power management circuitry to guarantee constant headroom performance throughout the normal life of a 9-volt battery. with a heavy-duty phase 90-sized housing. a replica ep-3 knob. true bypass switching and a status led. the echoplex preamp is built to take a beating on the road so you can leave your fragile vintage piece at home