Warm Audio WA-TS Tube Squealer review: “it offers a great deal in a small enclosure”
$149, warmaudio.com
Those loveable scamps at Warm Audio are back at it some industry disrupting manoeuvres and their latest rage-bait offering is a feature-laden take on the legendary green snarl of the Ibanez Tube Screamer.
READ MORE: Warm Audio Throne of Tone review: “this pedal can be as simple or complex as you need it to be”
Image: Press
Warm Audio WA-TS Tube Squealer – what is it?
The irony of an American company (Warm Audio are based in Texas but “use modern manufacturing methods” i.e. overseas labour) cloning a classic Japanese design is not lost on me as I survey the single-berth ramped enclosure in a rich shade of Caliban green. At first glance this looks, if not like an original 808, very much like one of the recent posh hardwired versions.
A closer look reveals that the Tube Squealer contains not one but three iconic Tube Screamer voicings – the original 808 of the late 1970s, the TS9 of the early 1980s with its rejigged output stage and resulting jump in aggression, and the TS10 – which while it never made the same cultural impact as its predecessors – is appreciated for its upgraded buffer and clean boost voice.
Warm Audio have also packed a mix knob and a pickup voicing mini toggle into the main control panel. The mix knob can be completely switched off with a satisfying click and the pickup selector goes from the original single coil-loving voicing with its midrange emphasis of 88Hz to a humbucker friendly 2kHz which should help you slam through the mix with gusto regardless of your choice of instrument.
As if that wasn’t enough, the rear panel houses a brace of tiny slider switches which offer popular modifications amongst Screamer cognoscenti – a true or buffered bypass mode option and a voltage boost with an internal voltage doubler which will run the Squealer at 18 volts for that sweet sweet headroom. Squeal piggy, I mutter darkly.
Image: Press
Warm Audio WA-TS Tube Squealer – sounds
Slipping the Tube Squealer in-between a Gibson SG and an old Cornford Hurricane yields reassuringly familiar results. It’s a bit woofy to start with but the clouds part when I engage the humbucker voicing and set about the serious business of having a very nice nice time indeed.
In its 808 state, the Tube Squealer does that polite blues hound thing very well and as I wind up the gain it gets pleasingly belligerent while remaining grippy and expressive. The TS9 personality (my favourite of the Screamer iterations) is absolutely spot on, but in this day and age with TS clones saturating the market, it needs to be.
The gain stage is more than capable of backhanding a preamp stage into classic rawk territory and the TS10 – while not wildly different to the other voices – is a nice to have. Man of the match though, goes to the blend switch which allows for some really interesting and musical textures.
This is a very good pedal in a crowded market. It offers a great deal in a small enclosure and should be on your radar if you’re going down that long dark Screamer rabbit hole in search of tonal happiness.
Image: Press
Warm Audio WA-TS Tube Squealer – alternatives
There are as many Tube Screamer-derived pedals on the market as there are grains of sand on Waimea Bay here in 2025, the options are almost endless and cover pretty much every budget from the bargain basement Behringer T0800 Vintage Tube Overdrive (£19.90) to the real thing in the shape of Ibanez’s TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer Overdrive (£140). There’s even a Screamer for those who want to spend “Nice weekend away with the missus” money, in the shape of the ultra-rare Vemuram x Ibanez TSV808 (£2000-ish)
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
