Different delay ICs, for one. That makes some difference right there.

There are several different incarnations of the mistress. I’ve played a few of them. The earliest is the original Dave Cockerell design in the silver muff sized box with green font. It uses a reticon bbd and runs on 18v. I believe that is the most famous version used by Gilmour, Summers, Lifeson, Trower, Levene, etc. It has the most rate and depth knob range of any of the units I’ve tried, and tends to be very bright and trebley compared to the others. Unfortunately, it also tends to suffer from the volume drop issue.

The next version was a Howard Davis redesign of the original which looked the same cosmetically, but it ran on 9v instead of 18. The only other major difference I remember from the unit I had was that it wasn’t as trebley. I regret selling it

Howard then designed the Deluxe version in the larger silver enclosure withe black font, though there are versions of this in green and black too. They also use the reticon bbds. I’ve forgotten what voltage they run at, but I want to say 24v. – not sure. These sounded much fuller, with added low end, and no more volume drop. However, the range in the depth and rate knobs is more narrow in my unit than in the previous incarnations. Also, you get the added bonus of a direct output so you can tailor your own blend of effected and dry signal.

The deluxe was then redesigned again to use Panasonic bbds instead of Reticons. This made the delayed signal a bit more hifi and clean.

And that’s just the pre-1983 history of the mistress, as far as I’ve had the pleasure to try.

Maybe someone else can expound on the reissues.

The vintage ones were all SAD1024 (Reticon) as far as I know. I’ve never seen one w/ Panasonic chips yet. The early reissue used a Reticon RD5106A. Not sure what the later ones are using.

I wonder why no one is making a reticon clone out there for affordable prices? Seems like there would be a market for them.