Boss HM-2W Heavy Metal Waza Craft

About the Boss HM-2W Heavy Metal Waza Craft

The Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal is the distortion behind the Swedish chainsaw death metal sound, the buzzsaw tone bands like In Flames built a genre on, usually by turning every knob to full. It pairs a high-gain distortion with an EQ section, and the prized originals were made in Japan. Boss later reissued it as the HM-2W Waza Craft, which owners describe as cleaner and more refined, without the chaos of the original.

In one paragraph

The page's figures as one paragraph, assembled for quoting; not written by hand.

Sellers are asking a median of €151 for the Boss HM-2W Heavy Metal Waza Craft today, 59% over the €95 it actually sells for (43 recorded sales, last 90 days; most sold between €90 and €110). New, it costs €162 at Thomann (read 3 October 2026), so a used one at the median saves about 41%. There are 119 listings live right now across eBay United States, Reverb, from €93 asking. Figures computed 17 October 2026 by Doirado from cross-platform listing data.

What owners have said elsewhere

Paraphrased from 66 discussion threads among 11 owners, 2024-2025. No names, nothing quoted.

For its one job, owners love the HM-2, gnarly, chugging, great fun, and a few who own both it and a Metal Zone say they reach for the HM-2 more. It is the sound: dime the knobs and you get the scandinavian death metal chainsaw like nothing else does, and the Waza Craft reissue keeps that while cleaning it up and adding usable lower-gain tones. The classic tricks owners share are to use it as a gain stage rather than a lone distortion, boost a Metal Zone with it the way At the Gates did, or push it with a DS-1 in front, and, contrary to the meme, some say not to crank every knob or it just turns to mush. The honest caveat is versatility: owners call it a one-trick pony, a bit one-dimensional, and those who want range often keep a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone or a Metal Muff around instead. If the chainsaw is the sound you want, nothing else nails it, just know that is mostly what it does.