High End Boutique Stomp Pedals

I have a large collection of stomp pedals. Enough to fill two pedal boards.
Most of the pedals I own are low end, mass produced products.

$30 DanElectro pedals - A Chorus and a 10 Band EQ

Three Vox pedals - a 847A Wah and an ICE-9 OverDrive And a Satchurator distortion pedal. $90, and $130
twice.

A couple of Marshall pedals I found on eBay since they are no longer made - The Guv'vor and a BluesBreaker. $50 and $50.

An MXR Compressor - $80

You get the idea...relatively inexpensive pedals. Hell, I play relatively inexpensive guitars.
So why did I get genuinely interested in a $400 pedal?

A friend I have known for forty years had invited me to his house last year to try one. I liked it, but could not see the need to replace my ICE-9 and my Satchurator, and certainly not for $400. No pedal is that good.

Then I start watching YouTube videos for the pedal.

The pedal reacts to your attack. You strum harder and it sounds sharper and with more drive. It is reactive to your play? It also has two levels of gain so you can preset two distinct sounds.
A bit of OD on one and a bit of OD and Clipping on two. And what kind of clipping? Symmetrical, asymmetrical or none.
And then apply that clipping to either channel or both.
A tone knob, and then three more knobs to fine tune the bass, middle and treble.
True bypass and two volume knobs to set levels across the board - off and channel one and two.

$400.
But it is the first pedal I'd be able to call an amp in a box.
I got the chance to play with one while doing some Stones tunes and the ability to dial in the exact sound I knew I wanted was unsettling.
And easily.
The trouble with many pedals is once you introduce them into your chain, they so alter the sound that they take you back to changing all the settings on your amp and the other pedals. They set you back to square one.

With this HALO installed I got to remove three pedals - the ICE-9, the Satchurator and the Guv'nor. As they became redundant, adding nothing but noise.

Tune in next time when we find out how well Sweetwater handles the issue with the pedal - it doesn't work with the power supply on my pedal board reducing it to battery only.
Not a real option in my world.
A new power supply is arriving tomorrow, failing that I'll send it back and we'll see how well they provide customer service. This is a hallmark of Sweetwater and it is on test.

When I called Sweetwater to let them know I had a problem, they in turn emailed Alex...who called me while I was on the road. The guy that designed & made the pedal called to assure me it would be taken care of!
Un-freaking-believable.
As my pal who first demo'ed the pedal for me said, "Insanely good customer service company calling..."

The Harmonic Amp-Like OverDrive has passed all tests so far with flying colors.
Alairex HALO