I had a good laugh today

[owlexifry]

Gotta get that truth up a man's face instead of behind his back, so I told him his pedal was being traced and set against his AI marketing hyperbole and he might want to join the discussion, which I linked, and for which he needed to register

well done

this would have sold quite well if he was advertising it what it is.

idk, that RRP is fucken psycho.
how many reasonable prospective buyers would actually be interested in spending 460USD on a YATS. probably not a lot.
and he knows that.
it's more than just slick marketing, buzz words and AI bullshit.
dude is actively pulling a scam and lying about his product. total fraud. this kind of behaviour warrants a brutal smackdown.

 

[jwin615]

So, we doing a Burstaphony Pedals for Ukraine build contest or what?
Surely Mr King would get behind such a philanthropic venture.

 

[anevilspar7an]

well done

idk, that RRP is fucken psycho.
how many reasonable prospective buyers would actually be interested in spending 460USD on a YATS. probably not a lot.
and he knows that.
it's more than just slick marketing, buzz words and AI bullshit.
dude is actively pulling a scam and lying about his product. total fraud. this kind of behaviour warrants a brutal smackdown.

Definitely not even worth half of that, I can also agree with you he is but a face hiding something really fugly inside.

 

[falco_femoralis]

idk, that RRP is fucken psycho.

Every time I hear about how expensive a car is in Australia it blows my mind. Is the aus dollar devalued compared to the USD? Or are things like cars just crazy expensive?

Is it just imports like japanese and euro, while domestics like Holdens and Fords are cheap?

 

[HamishR]

Random observations:

- So far I haven't seen any magic diodes. Has he missed out on magic diodes?

- There is indeed a market for ridiculously expensive TS pedals. Just look at Vemuram etc.

- this is where AI is leading us - yay. Spend all the money on servers, not health care or decent wages for low wage earners.

- There is a fair chance that mental illness is involved in all of this. I would be surprised if it wasn't, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong. We don't know much about Ayran King or whovever he is. If he is from Ukraine who knows what has happened to him? Shit happens to people everywhere but I reckon the chances increase exponentially in some where like Ukraine.

-There will always be a taint on the pedal which means that people like me won't touch it with a ten foot barge pole. Maybe that's a shame, but there are plenty of good pedals out. A lot of them are not rehashes of the fucking tubecreamer! I have designed/modified my own which suit me perfectly but I wouldn't presume would suit anyone else. Frankly I'd rather Joe Bonnamassa didn't like my favourite pedals. That might spoil it all.

 

[Aentons]

dude is actively pulling a scam and lying about his product. total fraud. this kind of behaviour warrants a brutal smackdown.

This. It is nothing less than outright lies and should be exposed for what it is.

The orange guy has made a whole lot of people think this sort of thing is normal but it is not.

 

[genXslacker]

The following two pedals are in the same price band:

 

[genXslacker]

So far I haven't seen any magic diodes. Has he missed out on magic diodes?

Yes, Bill Finnegan cornered the market on magic diodes. They are, after all, essential.

 

[HamishR]

Every time I hear about how expensive a car is in Australia it blows my mind. Is the aus dollar devalued compared to the USD? Or are things like cars just crazy expensive?

Is it just imports like japanese and euro, while domestics like Holdens and Fords are cheap?

Holden stopped making cars here a while ago. Same with Ford and Mitsubishi. You can still buy Ford and Mitsubishi but I don't think any are built here any more. Holden just doesn't exist. It was just General Motors anyway - nothing particularly Australian about them. Holden was a coach builder going/gone out of business which GM bought to be their front in Australia. For a long time Australia would import chassis and engines from the US and UK and local carriage builders would make the bodywork for them here. It was cheaper and a way arround import duties.

With Korean and Chinese cars coming in they couldn't compete. Plus the "family sedan" which used to be their staple is no longer fashionable. Everyone "needs" a big MF SUV or ute. I live in an older suburb and new cars don't even fit on the roads but every school road is choked with them at the beginning and end of the school day.

Japanese cars are expensive here. I have a crappy Honda Civic, made in Maylasia and verging on indestructable, unlike any Holden or Ford which have/had terrible resale value. My son has a Japanese made Subaru Impreza wagon which is a very nice car. We should probably get a better car soon but they're such a waste of money. We are very lucky to live in an older suburb where we can actually walk to shops(!) or catch the train the to Perth or Freo as the station is 3-400m at the end of our street and we have no petrol or parking fees.

And the Aussie dollar is at around US$.7 at the moment. It goes up, it goes down... People get paid a living wage here so in general life is good. The minimum wage in the US is starvation level stuff compared with most countries. I think minimum here is at least 3 x what it is in the US. We like it like that.

 

[Aentons]

Maybe he is actually an AI manifestation

This picture of the workspace certainly is

He either doesn't realize it's obvious or doesn't even try to hide it. The file name of the image is "ChatGPT-Image-Dec-28-2025-at-03_28_34-PM.webp"

About Us – Octaking Labs

octakinglabs.com

 

[gonzo]

Lots of left handed guitars....

 

[genXslacker]

This picture of the workspace certainly is

I like what he's done with the Marshall logo on that bottom cabinet.

 

[genXslacker]

Lots of left handed guitars....

The tuning keys on the Strat appear to be mounted to the front of the headstock. And the other headstock appears to be growing dendrites.

 

[owlexifry]

Every time I hear about how expensive a car is in Australia it blows my mind.

i guess new cars are.
but who buys a fkn brand new car that will lose 30% the moment it leaves the showroom? (unless its one of those waitlisted toyotas..)
used is the way.

Is the aus dollar devalued compared to the USD?

big time

Or are things like cars just crazy expensive?

everything here is expensive.
pretty much everything we have that isn't dug and/or grown out of the ground is imported, because there is no (significant) manufacturing industry left in australia.

Is it just imports like japanese and euro, while domestics like Holdens and Fords are cheap?

the current market / new cars on the road appears to be mostly chinese dishwashers on wheels and KIAs.
japanese and euro is comparably more expensive.
ford and holden is dead.
the current new car market couldn't be less interesting, tbh ive just been kicking around a ~20yo subaru for the last 10+ years.

People get paid a living wage here so in general life is good.

maybe if you're a home owner... rental/lease life is fucked.

The minimum wage in the US is starvation level stuff compared with most countries. I think minimum here is at least 3 x what it is in the US. We like it like that.

that is a plus.
but as you would know, a dollar gets you so much more in the US, especially if you're talking about hospitality etc.
Couldn't believe how cheap dining out was in San Diego when i went for a conference a while back.

fair chance that mental illness is involved in all of this.

it may be a factor, but mental illness is not a valid excuse for this kind of behaviour.

 

[Aleph Null]

but as you would know, a dollar gets you so much more in the US, especially if you're talking about hospitality etc.
Couldn't believe how cheap dining out was in San Diego when i went for a conference a while back.

This varies quite a bit by region in the US. It's cheep in San Diego mostly because there is a large Hispanic population that they can pay that starvation minimum wage.

 

[owlexifry]

This varies quite a bit by region in the US. It's cheep in San Diego mostly because there is a large Hispanic population that they can pay that starvation minimum wage.

ahh yeah, that’s a good point.
had similar experiences in atlanta and miami, but DC was a little pricier - so i went for the food trucks, grabbed a philly cheesesteak. omg the cheese

 

[Aleph Null]

To be clear, I haven't worked in the restaurant business. I'm not a demographer or an economist. I've noticed, anecdotally, that the cost of dining out is strongly negatively correlated to the size of the Hispanic population in a given city.

 

[tegendemuur]

I have had time to ruminate on what I said. @tegendemuur
I apologize for the kind of reply I made. My intention was to essentially say we don't need outside attention from mindless randos about Robert's work and I came off as mean and petty. If anyone thinks I was defending this 'Aryan King' phony, couldn't be further from the truth. He is advertising what sounds like an actual good pedal with buzz words, slick marketing, and AI bullshit when he didn't even need to, this would have sold quite well if he was advertising it what it is.

Doesn't matter! It's a bit of a tricky situation we're in anyway. Surely you know of cases where commenters on youtube go link bad reviews and to artists / designers / etc, creating rifts between those two parties. As an Aussie would say: "That's not on!" (Thanks Koala Man! Had to look that up back then and love how polite this sounds, while actually being a very stern dissaproval!)

Anyway, but here the product doesn't suck / isn't to one's taste... It's swindling people to buy something which is not as advertised, very elaborately, and at a premium price! By giving the guy a chance to voice his side of the story, we got fair game with what we're doing here. He got his chance to (an impossible) defence.

Maybe he'll learn something by what happened here, and by how this continues, and pulls the product (or brand) at some point? That's gotta be the greatest win (next to all the funny stuff happening!)! No more people scammed, and he might go sell these pedals for 1/3 to recoup any losses, and call them PAF voiced TS or whatever.

But, as long as he keeps selling these things, yeah... The brand should be torn new assholes from all angles we can find.

 

[tegendemuur]

This picture of the workspace certainly is

He either doesn't realize it's obvious or doesn't even try to hide it. The file name of the image is "ChatGPT-Image-Dec-28-2025-at-03_28_34-PM.webp"

About Us – Octaking Labs

octakinglabs.com

View attachment 119548

Thanks, this photo was missing from the thread. It should be online for all to see, forever! A banner of the innocent early AI days!

 

[tegendemuur]

There is a fair chance that mental illness is involved in all of this. I would be surprised if it wasn't, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong. We don't know much about Ayran King or whovever he is. If he is from Ukraine who knows what has happened to him? Shit happens to people everywhere but I reckon the chances increase exponentially in some where like Ukraine.

Yeah, the affirmative nature of AI and certain personality traits don't go well together.

Sure hope he's not asking the machine on how to get out of this mess...