So if you’ve been watching a couple of big announcements have just been made in the analog delay world:

Boss has released the DM-101 delay. Long delay, many chips, much luscious modulation, stereo out, different modes, midi control. There are several gushing demos online, and I agree that it sounds great. It’s got that special something to my ears that most of the Memory Mans have. I had just discovered my digital delay has a bad output in one side that day, so I took it as a sign from from the guitar gods (probably The Edge) and preordered it.

Here’s the complication though… EAE had also just announced a killer BBD delay the Sending V2 which also has long times, modulation, midi, but also has a preamp (which they seem to do a superb job at), ramping, “better” BBD CHIPS, and an FX loop. There are only a couple of sound clips so far, and it sounds good, but doesn’t really excite me like listening to a Memory Man or the DM-101 did. It also doesn’t have stereo out, but to be fair the BOSS only has mono in, so it is a little problematic coming after my stereo mod too. Lastly it is even more expensive than the $500 Boss at $650.

Can I overcome the lack of an fx loop and preamp by running the BOSS in parallel with mod and reverb in kill dry mode and putting whatever effects I want there? Is this a bad idea for any reason (besides $)? What do you think of the sounds and what the merits and shortcomings of these delays are? Should I just get a Memory Man 1100TT?