Barber Electronics forum.

I recently called the Barber HQ and got some good advice from David, in which he recommended I try a Custom Cool for an even more transparent overdrive choice. I bought one to see if it would out do my SR and it did far better than I could have expected. After quite a few hours of trim pot fine tuning, other than the added clipping, the bypassed/on tones are basically indistinguishable. No exaggeration! A large part of this is that the Custom Cool can not only match the eq of the bypassed tone but also translates the "character" of the bypassed tone. Two different things and something that not all "transparent" overdrives can do, in my opinion. Aside from the transparency, the dynamics function is BRILLIANT. After having it I would never want to have an overdrive that didn't have it. Higher gain settings can still be transparent or pulling the tone knob with the dynamics low is definitely some Marshall-y, ZZ Top territory. I think I'm going to buy a second Custom Cool so I can have one low gain, one higher gain. Anyways, I only write my observations because there is not a ton of Custom Cool info out there and I've long been searching for THE most transparent drive. Also, in my phone call with David he also confirmed my suspicions that matching an overdrive with a Vox/Matchless style circuit can be very difficult, if transparency is what you want. This pedal was certainly a problem solver for my Matchless style amp. I think all the trim pots and extra functions might turn some people off, but if you're willing to spend some time and go through a couple waves of ear fatigue the rewards are great!

yeah... the custom cool is the only barber pedal I sold. not sure it was a good idea. I do miss it from time to time.
it was really the most transparent drive of all. and as Cobra Kai says it IS the clean sound with added grit.

however I found the grit to be a little too gritty if that makes sense (I tend to like fine grain grit).
but I guess that just the way it is.