Hello!

I recently picked up several old Small Stones with pot date codes indicating 1980. Red and black color on the top with white lettering. I believe these are considered “version 3” Small Stones. They do not have a status lamp. I have three of them and they all have the circuit that uses the five single chip OTAs.

Then I picked up another old Small Stone, pot date code indicates 1982… I believe this is also considered a “version 3”, the case looks the same as the others. But this one has the circuit that uses just the dual OTAs – two LM13600AN and one LM324N.

So, in sum, I have several old “version 3” Small Stones here, but one has a very different circuit than the others. From the best I can tell, none of these units have been tampered with, but I guess anything is possible, I did receive them all second-hand.

I did come across this article (link below) that shows the “version 3” circuit as being the one with the dual OTAs – two LM13600AN and one LM324N. If this article is accurate, then this means that my 1982 Small Stone is “correct”, but then why do my several 1980 units have the 5 single chip OTAs? The article also shows newer “version 4” units using the 5 single chip OTAs. (???)

If any of this info is accurate and if all my units are stock (as they appear to be, but?), then it would mean that EHX used the 5-chip configuration in the very early `80’s then switched to the dual-OTA configuration in 1982-ish then reverted back to the 5 chip configuration for version 4…??? Either that or my units have been severely messed with by previous owners. Either that or maybe my pot date codes are not accurately dating the units, maybe EHX had a huge batch of 1980 pots that they used for years later, maybe my units with 1980 pots are actually newer than 1980…??? Either that or maybe EHX had a large stock of extra circuit boards of both styles and just used them randomly over the years…???

Any help figuring this out would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

http://www.pedalarea.com/small_stone.htm