What's so great about Mullard Yellow Jackets?!

[icecreamer22]

What's so great about Mullard Yellow Jackets?!

[Philip]

They make you stand out in a crowd, but they are not so good for hiding dirt.

[icecreamer22]

Thanks Phil! I should have placed an "lol" on the end of the post. I love these buggers!!! A bit pricey in my stretch of woods, so I just assume they are becoming harder and harder to come by.

[theemadcap1]

They are pretty, but so are metal Mullard OC71s...

[daCod]

What's so great about Mullard Yellow Jackets?!

[Lee]

There are many similar transistors that sound just as good if not better. Steve's new Pigdog Competition driver for example does not have yellow jacket OC44's but has a military grade transistor that is equivalent and I would bet it sounds just as good as a yellow jacket would.

[peps1]

Resale value of the pedal seem to be the only difference, in my experience...

[1bottlerocket]

From a technical standpoint I do not know any differences. I can say from personal experience that the Competition Driver I have with the YJ is in a handful of the very best boosters I have ever played. It is the epitome of 60's British music. I cannot not say enough good things about it. The other one that really does it for me is the Rooster of Reality and RR-10 from Dave. Analogman has a little writeup about them on his website but no real details.

[agoldoor]

You know, I personally believe it's one of these cases of people seeing them in very sought after pedals. They're cool looking IMO, but it's that there were those rare few pigdog drivers built with them that I think really set the market on fire for these.

I would even go so far as to suggest that regardless of the fact that there were original vintage tonebenders built with OC81Ds, OC81Ds weren't so fetishized and sought after before Dave Main educated people on tonebenders, their versions, and the parts within. I have to say though that the OC81D MKII builds that I've heard DO sound amazing -- really really full, heavy duty fuzz.

I mean this in the best way, I don't mean to start any flame wars... (I don't know why this would, but I just have this nagging feeling that I'm saying something controversial.)

[Lee]

David can build a amazing Tone Bender with any kind of transistor out there he uses magical germanium dust