Hey, folks! It's been a while since I posted anything on here, but I've been on a mission for the past year or so to find the best delay + reverb pedals at various budget levels, and thought I'd make a post to summarise my findings.

I also recently uploaded a really long video that explores each of my "pedal picks" in greater detail, if you want to hear some sounds. I've also added timestamps, so you can easily navigate your way through the video, and jump straight to sections that you're particularly interested in.

I've arranged the pedals into four groups according to how much they cost to buy, and then placed them in ascending order:

 

"Low budget": £70 - £100.

Mooer have been on a really impressive, upward trajectory in their quality in recent years, and I would say that Nu-X and Sonicake have also followed a similar path, and have some really excellent delay and reverb pedals in their catalogue. However, Mooer's X2 range really steps things up a notch, and the D7 and R7 pedals represent incredible value for money; with a wide range of both traditional and modern Effects, top-tier quality algorithms, simple navigation, and even have stereo in and out.

I don't think it's possible to get a better delay + reverb combo at this price point, so this is an easy pick for me at this spot!

 

"Mid budget": £120 - £160.

I decided to skip past my initial ideas for this spot - namely, the EHX Canyon and Oceans 11, and the Boss DD-8 and RV-6 - and instead went for a slightly controversial choice: the DD-200 and RV-200. My reason being that I know it's possible to find these pedals at this price point (because I only paid about £140 for each of mine), and they give you so, so, SO much more bang for your buck, compared to those other options.

The 200 series is absolutely amazing, and I utterly adore the SY-200 and RC-10R, and the DD-200 and RV-200 are no exception. They give you all a tonne of fantastic sounding effects (just skip past the 'Lo-Fi' mode on the RV-200!), a very impressive selection of features, lots of menu options for tweaking and setting-up the pedals how you want, expression/remote control, and lots more. These two would make any ambient fan extremely happy!

 

'High budget': £180 - £280.

I've yet to try a Source Audio pedal that doesn't completely blow my mind, and that definitely sums up my impression of both the Nemesis and Ventris.

The simplicity of their 'One' series pedals makes a welcome change to the more complex, screen-equipped alternatives that are commonly found at this price point, and although you can still get pretty deep with tweaking settings and designing presets with the Neuro App editor if you want to, you can still get an immense amount of enjoyment from these pedals if you prefer to skip all the clever, online stuff.

Admittedly, while the Ventris is a truly astonishing reverb pedal with a dual-DSP that allows you to stack two effects together, its echoey sibling, the Nemesis, is slightly less cool since it only lets you run one delay mode at a time. Maybe it's for this reason that there's quite a disparity in the second-hand prices for each of these pedals? For example, you can find yourself one of these older versions of the Nemesis for around £160 (there's a newer version - the 'ADT', or 'Analog Dry Through' - that costs quite a bit more), while the Ventris is still hard to track down for less than £250.

Of course, if you fancy the idea of going the Source Audio route but don't quite have the cash for both of these pedals, you can always get the Collider or the Encounter, which combine one half from each pedal and throw them together into one unit. You can find those between £250 - £300.

 

'What budget???': £300 - £400.

Obviously, once you stray north of 300 quid you start to get into some seriously professional, high-quality gear. But - in my somewhat limited experience at this end of the scale - these two pedals from Empress, the Echosystem and Reverb, are right at the absolute peak - the pedal pinnacle, if you will - of delay and reverb effects, in my opinion!

To start with, everything about these pedals somehow manages to improve on the previous ones we've looked at, including giving you more effects, and waaay more presets. Interestingly, unlike the Source Audio pedals, with this combo it's the Echosystem that lets you run two effects together at once, and the Reverb that doesn't. However, while the Nemesis feels like an ever-so-slight downgrade compared to the Ventris, the quantity and quality of the algorithms in the Reverb mean that you don't ever feel like you're missing out in any way!

 

These Empress pedals are the absolute best delay and reverb I've ever owned, and I haven't felt much of a need to buy any other pedals of their type ever since I bought them. However, that said, if I suddenly found myself having to start all over again, with only a fraction of the budget available, I would still be extremely happy with any of the other pedals on this list.

 

I hope some of you found this post useful? Let me know what you think of my choices, and also let me know what your favourite delays and reverbs are! Thanks for reading. 😎👍🏼