My small stone is a v3, and there is no tick. Might be a simple component that has aged and needs replacing. Maybe an op amp.

Cool. I’ve never seen a Ram’s Head Bad Stone before. Those must be extremely rare. I wonder which circuit it uses, the Mummy Face, or the black and orange version.

It’s possible that someone tampered with the internal trimpots. That would definitely cause the unit to have lower output and distortion. Trying to recalibrate the trimpots on a Flanger Hoax can’t be much fun. I would probably send it back to the seller and ask them to send you a calibrated unit.

You can see the trimpots and their settings clearly at this site http://www.modezero.com/flanger-hoax.htm

Calibrating trimpots by eye is not the most reliable method, so it probably won’t help to go by a visual reference. Often trimpots are used instead of fixed resistors because of the changes or differences in tolerance of other components in the circuit. I haven’t any clue if this is true with the Enigma, because trimpots are also used to set user preferences in input gain, or direct to wet signal ratios, etc.

If your unit doesn’t sound good to you, and you believe that the trimpots are the reason, then recalibrating them probably shouldn’t be too difficult. A method I’ve used effectively for myself is to record yourself via looper or audio recorder, then feed it into the effect while you adjust the trimpots and listen for the best sound.

Otherwise, you might just want to send it to EHX to recalibrate it for you. They’ll probably charge a small fee.

The most affordable EHX option for long reverbs is probably the Holy Stain. Otherwise, the Cathedral will definitely fit the bill.

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

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.

Hnpd!!! :metal: