Legendary Product Lines: Every Manufacturer's Most Famous Gear

This page rounds up the single most iconic product line from each manufacturer covered across our pedal, guitar, and amp guides — the models that built each brand's reputation and defined its place in music history.

Pedals

Boss — DS-1 Distortion / SD-1 Super Overdrive

Boss's compact pedal format, launched in 1977, changed the effects industry on its own. The DS-1 (1978) became the best-selling distortion pedal in history, with over 1.5 million units sold and continuous production since release — no other Boss pedal has matched its combination of ubiquity and longevity. The SD-1 Super Overdrive (1981) earned its own legendary status for a different reason: guitarists discovered it was the perfect tool for pushing a medium-gain Marshall into full saturation, a trick still used by rock and metal players today.

ProCo — The RAT

Born from an accident in a "rodent-infested" basement in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the RAT (1978) became one of the most recognizable distortion circuits ever built, prized for a hard-clipping tone grittier than a Tube Screamer but more controlled than a Big Muff. Its most legendary variant, the vintage LM308-chip RAT (pre-1996), still commands a premium on the used market — even though blind tests routinely fail to prove it sounds meaningfully different from later units.

Ibanez — Tube Screamer (TS808/TS9)

Developed by Maxon and sold under the Ibanez name starting in 1979, the Tube Screamer became one of the most copied and modified overdrive circuits in guitar history. Its most legendary edition, the original TS808, is inseparable from Stevie Ray Vaughan's tone — a reputation strong enough that clean original units regularly sell for hundreds of dollars over the newer TS9.

Electro-Harmonix — Big Muff Pi

EHX's very first product was a power booster, but the Big Muff Pi (1969) is the pedal that made the company's name. Early adopters included Jimi Hendrix (who bought one of the first units at Manny's Music) and David Gilmour, whose Big Muff-driven Pink Floyd tones are still studied by players today. The Big Muff has gone through more circuit variations than almost any other pedal in this list, and different eras (Triangle, Ram's Head, Russian, current) each have their own passionate following.

Guitars

Gibson — Les Paul

The Les Paul (1952) is arguably the most influential solid-body electric guitar design in history alongside Fender's Stratocaster and Telecaster. Its most legendary edition, the 1958-1960 "Burst" Standard, was a commercial failure in its own time — only around 1,700 sold — yet those same guitars are now among the most valuable production instruments ever made, driven by the sound and playing style of guitarists like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page who popularized them years after the fact.

Fender — Stratocaster

Fender's flagship model since 1954, the Stratocaster set the template for the modern solid-body electric with its contoured body, tremolo bridge, and three-pickup layout. Its clean, bright, high-headroom voicing became the foundation of blues, country, funk, and surf rock, and its design has remained recognizable — with running refinements — for over 70 years.

Epiphone — Inspired by Gibson Series

As Gibson's own budget line, Epiphone's most significant recent product line isn't a single model but an entire strategy: the Inspired by Gibson series, which specifically emphasizes vintage-correct details and, on some models, shared parts sourcing with Gibson USA guitars. Reviewers have singled out models like the Firebird V and ES-335 in this line for closing the construction gap with their Gibson counterparts more than any Epiphone line before it.

Squier — Classic Vibe Series

Squier's most respected modern line, Classic Vibe, was built specifically to recreate the feel and tone of vintage-era Fender instruments at a budget price — and it succeeded well enough that Classic Vibe Stratocasters and Telecasters are routinely recommended over instruments costing two to three times as much.

Amps

Marshall — JTM45 / Plexi ("1959" Super Lead)

Marshall's first amp, the JTM45 (1962), was explicitly built as an improved take on the Fender Bassman for British players who couldn't easily get American amps. But it's the 1959 Super Lead ("Plexi"), introduced a few years later, that became the sound of rock itself — the amp behind Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC, and the reason "Marshall stack" became visual shorthand for rock and roll power.

Fender — Twin Reverb / Deluxe Reverb

Fender's blackface-era amps set the standard for clean American tone, and the Twin Reverb in particular is still considered the benchmark for pristine, high-headroom clean sound — the amp against which every other "clean" amp gets measured. The smaller Deluxe Reverb earned its own legendary status as the go-to studio and small-venue amp for players who wanted that same voicing at lower volume.

Vox — AC30

Designed by engineer Dick Denney and launched by Jennings Musical Industries in 1959, the AC30 became the sound of the British Invasion, most famously used by The Beatles on their first two albums. Its chimey, compressed character — driven by EL84 tubes — remains unmatched by any of the other brands on this list, and it's still the amp most closely associated with jangly, mid-forward British rock tone.

Peavey — 5150 / 6505

Developed with Eddie Van Halen and released in 1992, the 5150 (renamed 6505 in 2005 after Peavey and Van Halen parted ways) became one of the defining high-gain amps in metal and hard rock history. Its aggressive, saturated lead channel shaped genre-defining records — Machine Head's Burn My Eyes among the most cited examples — and it remains a touring and studio standard for metal guitarists on a budget three decades later.

Mesa/Boogie — Mark Series / Dual Rectifier

Mesa/Boogie's flagship innovation, the cascading gain stage, first appeared in the Mark I (1972) and matured through the Mark IIC+, an amp still chased by collectors for its specific blend of clean-to-crunch versatility. The Dual Rectifier series later became one of the definitive metal amp tones of the 1990s and 2000s, prized for a bone-shaking low end and tight, punchy distortion that shows up constantly in "best metal amp" rankings alongside Peavey's 5150/6505.

Orange — "Pics Only" Series / OR120

Orange's early-1970s "Pics Only" amps — nicknamed for using symbols instead of text on their control panels — established the brand's signature thick, mid-heavy growl, distinct from anything Marshall or Vox were building at the time. That character carried through to later flagships like the OR120, and Orange's tone became closely associated with genres (stoner rock, doom) where its heavier, fuzzier voice fit better than Marshall's more classic-rock-oriented crunch.

Roland — JC-120 Jazz Chorus

Introduced in 1975, the JC-120 took the opposite approach from every tube amp on this list — leaning fully into solid-state technology to deliver what's still considered the industry benchmark for pure, uncolored clean tone, paired with a distinctive built-in stereo chorus. It's remained in continuous, largely unchanged production for 50 years, a rare feat matched by few other amps in this guide, and its "JC clean" tone has become a reference point across jazz, funk, and pedal-heavy rigs of every genre.

Up next: full company histories for every manufacturer on this list — founding stories, key figures, and how each brand became what it is today.