Karate Shop has much lower gain than Systech Harmonic Energizer

[felipesareas]

Hey guys, I had the wonderful opportunity to A/B the Karate Shop (mine is from 2015) with an original vintage Systech Harmonic Energizer and was amazed to notice how similar the EQ works on both of them.

The gain however sounded a lot different. Original Harmonic Energizer had a much wider gain range (from as subtle as Karate Shop at low gain up to a distortion/Fuzz like tone. The KS almost doesn't distort while the HE gets a smooth saturation about mid day that sounded beautiful. At maximum gain it had a beautiful fuzzy sound

Is there any way to make the gain higher on the Karate Shop? I was thinking I could compare both schematics and work out a solution but that looked risky as the original Harmonic Energizer seems to use a TIS97 Transistor which I assume to be an extinct component. Any Ideas on that?

Kind Regards,

Felipe