Am I totally wrong in thinking that and EQ pedal could do the same thing as most reble boosters? Do they process the tone in any other way? Thanks. Sorry for a dumb question.

treble boosters generally increase gain along with the treble frequencies.

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You're not totally wrong at all. The tricky part is finding the frequencies that the treble booster is enhancing and pushing those same frequencies up, with the same Q, on the EQ pedal. Gain can usually be dialed up on an EQ as well. Where an EQ shouldn't behave the same is clipping -- some treble boosters clip as you drive up the gain. An EQ, designed well, shouldn't do that.

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Germanium treble boosters sound way different than an eq to me. Into a clean amp they give a very raspy overdrive and into a dirty amp they add a layer within your distortion that you can't get with just an eq. they sound ridiculous when you sandwich them between other gain pedals.

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I love my homemade Rangemaster. It's one of my most used effects, great for adding shimmer and sparkle to distorted tones, or a nasal twangy charm to my clean amp. It also does wonderful things running into my EHX Wiggler, and had a similar effect on the Micro Vibe I used to have. It also helps my Neo-Fuzz cut through the mix of a six piece band.

You could try to cop the sound with an EQ, but as said above a real germanium treble booster does a lot more than boosting the treble frequencies. There's a certain mojo that the real Mullard glass transistors have.

what would you say the best germainum booster would be?

and what do you use?

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They don't a lot more; they do one more thing: they clip. That's not mojo, that's design. As for Mullards...well...I've heard bad old transistors and I've heard good old transistors. When they're good, they're great. But the consistency sucks. You can find sonically pleasing and consistently manufactured transistors today. That you need something like an OC71 is a fallacy. Blind, you'd be hard pressed to pick the Mullard box out of a lineup of treble boosters.

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I tried the Dytone once and thought it was incredible:
http://www.dytone.de/Booster.htm

It is pricey however.

Wednesday

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I don't know about "best", but I use an HBE Germania. They're not too expensive, have two very different useable modes and when the toggle switch broke on mine they sent me a replacement part for free. Even though I'm not the original owner and it was no longer under warranty.

In regards to the EQ vs. Treble Booster debate, as grillsergeant said you can get similar frequencies with an equalizer, but along with the clipping there's a certain compression that you don't get with a pedal equalizer. in addition when you use something with a lot of gain in front of a treble booster you get a nasty fuzz.

For reference, the velvet underground used treble boosters a lot on the album "white light/white heat".

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I should have been less specific; no, you do not need the Mullard OC71, 44, or whatever, but any good sounding germanium transistor. I happen to use the OC71, which I arrived on after trying a number of them in my Rangemaster. After going through an NKT275, AC128, OC44, and a handful of others I found the 71 to sound the best in my treble booster. None of the old trannies sound the same even when the part numbers are identical.

As for "mojo", when I plug a PNP silicon transistor in my Rangemaster, the effect works the same but lacks a certain quality that is hard to describe without using words like that. The design is the same, but the sound is not.