Stafford Maxon Hizbender 1944T

graybench · Post by **graybench** » 30 Oct 2022, 17:11

Pedal was only released in Japan, and seems like only from 2011-2012.
Name suggests a tonebender, anything but.
Basically a distortion+ with input/output buffers. Standard Maxon JFET switching.

karul · Post by **karul** » 30 Oct 2022, 17:47

it looks like the pcb's are from Maxon D&S II

CheapPedalCollector · Post by **CheapPedalCollector** » 01 Nov 2022, 11:33

Kind of a cross between a sonic distortion sans tone control and a distortion +. It'll be brighter than a distortion + by quite a lot with the input .001 omitted and the 1.8K resistor rather than 10k. It'll have more distortion too. Too bad it's a 50k volume pot instead of 100k, the output will be weak, that would be the first mod I did to it.

FiveseveN · Post by **FiveseveN** » 02 Nov 2022, 08:20

CheapPedalCollector wrote: ↑01 Nov 2022, 11:33 the output will be weak

How do you figure? The difference is 0.01 dB.

CheapPedalCollector · Post by **CheapPedalCollector** » 02 Nov 2022, 11:39

FiveseveN wrote: ↑02 Nov 2022, 08:20 How do you figure? The difference is 0.01 dB.

How do you figure? The Dist + is barely above unity gain, it's capable of being quite a bit louder than that.

FiveseveN · Post by **FiveseveN** » 02 Nov 2022, 14:32

CheapPedalCollector wrote: ↑02 Nov 2022, 11:39 How do you figure?

By reading books on electronics.
This circuit doesn't have the BMP-style tone control with its 10 dB insertion loss and significant voltage division with the load (the volume pot). I.e. a 100 K pot won't do shit in these very different circumstances.
Germanium diodes sure don't help if volume is an issue but it's hardly the only pedal to use this configuration.

CheapPedalCollector · Post by **CheapPedalCollector** » 03 Nov 2022, 13:57

Try it.

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 21 Nov 2022, 04:24

Drew a vero layout with slightly unusual board dimensions. Using just a half of dual opamp is a bit of a pain to draw. In this regard, circuit reminds me of SD-9 Sonic Distortion which also had one half unused and unterminated. Personally i think unused half should be terminated properly instead of letting it float.. In these designs however, it may not mattter all that much.

Unverified. At the time of writing.