Aion Aurum (Boss OD-2)

MichaelW

Well-known member
Build Rating
5.00 star(s)
Well, I got home from my business trip to LA around 8:30am Saturday morning on a red-eye.
It was a loooooong day that started with a 7am (PST) meeting and ended with catching a 10pm flight out of LAX.

I'd been awake for over 24 hours by the time I got home but I limited myself to a short nap after a much needed shower so I could get back on eastern time.
But for most of the day I was walking around feeling like a zombie. Definitely getting too old for the road warrior crap.....heh.
Glad I don't have to do it too often in the post-COVID world.

In order to keep myself occupied I decided to build a pedal:)

So back to my survey of the wonderful world of Boss overdrives, this is Aion's version of the Boss OD-2(r).

Every time I build an Aion pedal I find myself appreciating @Robert 's zen-like symmetry of his layouts.
As I've mentioned before, there's a lot I don't like about the typical Aion layout. Particularly the use of daughterboards and the knob positions. If I had my wits about me (left most of my wits on the Delta flight) I would have moved the knobs down by about 6-8mm. But as it it, I built it with the stock drill template.

Having said all that, it's another great sounding Boss overdrive. I'm definitely seeing a progression from the OD-1, SD-1, BD-2 to OD-2 from a more "classic" overdrive to a more "modern" scooped more aggressive overdrive sound.

The OD-2 is a discrete opamp topology using JFETS and PNP transistors to create the clipping stages.
To try to stay as close to the original as possible, I subbed the obsolete 2SK117-GR with the SMD equivalent (2SK209-GR) that I got from Mouser.
But these are so close to a J201, I could have easily subbed with 201's without changing the nature of the sound. The board provided SMD pads along with thru hole so it was convenient.

This is another pretty busy Boss board due to the discrete "opamp-less" design. Or maybe it just "felt" busy because I was building it running on fumes.

Neat sounding pedal but not my favorite Boss overdrive which at the moment is a toss up between the SD-1 (UberDrive) and the OD-1 (Aion Corona).
Those two really suit my ears much more.

I used the Tayda Violet enclosure. This last batch of enclosures I got from Tayda all seem to have a lot of orange peel to the gloss finish which is a bit disappointing.

I used Boss style knobs as a nod towards the original.

Plan is to get a couple of short demo's recorded this afternoon for this pedal as well as the Carmine Overdrive I built last week before leaving for my trip, stay tuned.

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