The signal from the pickups of an electric guitar or bass is so weak that poor-quality cables, cold joints and cheap contact materials ruin your sound. Switch contacts need to be made of special materials to permit loss-free switching of these low-level signals. All Lehle switchers feature special relays and slide switches with gold-plated contacts for totally reliable, absolutely zero-loss switching.

Hum loops and phase cancellations can occur as soon as the signal from an instrument is fed to more than one amp simultaneously. The one and only remedy for this is a high-quality transformer. Standard transformers modify the tone of electric guitars and basses very severely, since they are not designed to handle the low-strength high-impedance signals generated by instrument pickups. Lehle transformers, on the other hand, has been specially conceived for use with these high-impedance signals, preserving instrument tone and the interaction between instrument and amp and eliminating hum loops.

Swift and precise switching as between different instruments, effects loops or amps is essential in many live setups. To ensure this almost silently and wear-free, Lehle have designed a finely tuned control system with a self developed spring located between the foot switch, our famous mushroom head, and the actual sensing device on the circuit board. A processor based on the ARM Cortex-M technology controls the switching operation very fast and precisely. While a conventional switch can handle a maximum of 20,000 switching operations, the interplay of the components used here enables a service life of 2 million switching operations. A hundred times more!

The easy-action mushroom-shaped buttons characteristic of LEHLE products are mounted in the cover, so that your foot pressure is transmitted indirectly only, via a spring. Thus the electronics board is not exposed to mechanical loads, making your LEHLE virtually indestructible and guaranteeing years of trouble-free switching.

All Lehle products not featuring an LTHZ transformer and bearing this symbol switch the signal ground parallel to the signal itself via switches or relays with gold-plated contacts. Hum loops are thus effectively eliminated when switching backwards and forwards between different signal sources without, for example, simultaneous activation of two amps.

Many effects units feature stereo outputs - or - instruments frequently have two pickup systems, e.g. a combination of conventional magnetic and Piezo types, to emulate an acoustic sound. Lehle accessories are ideal for trouble-free routing of such dual-channel stereo signals. All stereo-capable Lehle products are also suitable for mono operation.