Despite the low price tag, this pedal comes with a all-metal enclosure. The knobs turn smoothly and the pots and switch are decent quality, as far as I can tell. The pedal has three knobs for level, tone, and gain. With the tone knob at noon, the pedal sounds a little subdued, I found that I really only like the overall tone of the pedal with the knob at 3-o-clock or above, regardless of the gain setting. At lower settings of the gain knob you can get clean boost sounds up to a light, smooth and transparent overdrive. At about 2-3-o-clock the increased gain results in increased sustain and crunch and after that the tones are pretty distorted, although the maximum gain settings push out only a medium gain overdrive. This is not a high gain pedal, for metal you'll need something else. This pedal is best suited for blues, country, classic rock and other genres which don't require higher gain. On all settings the noise level is low. Like the original supposedly does, there is a slight decrease in low end, a distinct mid-range hump, and a sweet high end with the tone knob at noon, with a more natural sounding and open tone with the knob set to 3-o-clock or above.
I've never actually used a real vintage Ibanez Tube Screamer or any of the newer variations, so I can't really say if it nails the tone of the original or not. I'll just say that it's a nice pedal for the money and offers a slightly subdued smooth range of boost and overdrive sounds, much mellower than say a Boss DS-1 or other hi-gain pedals. Compared to a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive it's a little bit less crunchy with less high end presence. I personally prefer the Boss SD-1 for transparent low to medium gain overdrive, but this pedal is still a good deal at half the price. It's quite possible that you could buy this pedal for the pennies it actually costs and modify it to increase it's performance, all of which can be done for fairly cheap if you know what you're doing. Good luck!
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