Surfy Industries Surfybear Metal Reverb 2.1 BK

In my experience with many plugins, from those included in amp sims to other, dedicated Spring algorithms, they have all come up short. I could never quite place the reason why a well-captured amp profile didn't sound 'right.' Now, I do. I was researching spring reverb plugins/pedals, and Surfybear came up in something I was reading. I didn't even realize that real, standalone, spring tanks were even made these days! I ordered this after reading a bunch of reviews and watching a few videos. It was backordered, so I had to wait a month or so.
The Surfybear Metal is everything I could've hoped for as far as the tone is concerned. Into my audio interface and Tonex, the Surfybear brings the guitar alive in a way I've never heard a digital emulation do. The effect responds amazingly to dynamics.
The main issue I can see is its size, but as I'm not trying to fit it onto a pedalboard, it is no problem for me.
My Surfeybear Metal is set up in my guitar signal chain to my DAW and whatever 'amp' capture I'm using at a given moment. It can sound very different, depending on the amp it's going into, but it's easy enough to dial in a sweet tone.
There are all kinds of digital reverbs out there, but none of the ones I've heard sound like this.

Very impressed with the sounds of the Surfybear. I have tried digital pedals before and some are very good, but this is the real deal and it sounds incredible. Most reviews of the Surfybear tend to focus on Surf guitar, which it clearly does so well. But equally, it excels at more mellow styles. I am mainly using it in conjunction with tape delay for ambient slide blues in the Ry Cooder ‘Paris, Texas’ vein.
I find Spring reverbs tend to add brightness (and sometimes harshness) to the sound, but this Surfybear has got a warmth which brings something extra to the overall sound... so like an ‘always on’ effect. And I’ve never felt that way about spring reverb before. My only gripe is this particular unit has a cosmetic blemish: the top of the metal chassis has a slight kink/twist. It is only minor, but it is a bit disappointing nonetheless. But the pedal is great overall.

If you're going for that authentic fender spring reverb sound, you can't get much closer than the surfybear.

Simple to use, sounds fantastic with warm bell-like reverb trails. The included power supply is a nice touch and the unit itself was a lot more heavy duty than I expected.

Calling it an effects pedal is a little optimistic (it's practically a pedalboard itself) but as an on-amp external reverb it works beautifully for what I wanted.

I've still not had chance to find out what the foot switch jack is for yet, but were Surfy Industries to issue a V2 of this pedal, it would be nice to have the dual settings toggle switch as on the Surfybear Compact.