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Does The Colour of the Boss Pedal Label Affect the Price?

2K views 21 replies 10 participants last post by  vadsy 
#1 ·
Hi there.

Doing some spring cleaning and wanting to sell off some Boss pedals I haven't used in years.

While searching for price estimates - the more I looked - the more confused it became as some sellers would specify the colour of the label - which made me think certain coloured labels may affect the price....?

Is there a site I could reference?

These are what I'm trying to find prices on...
  1. Noise Suppresor NS-2 (Silver Label)
  2. Turbo Overdrive OD-2R (Silver Label)
  3. Flanger BF-2 (Green Label)
  4. Compressor Sustainer CS-3 (Black Label)
  5. Digital Delay DD-2 (Blue Label)
  6. Chorus CE-2 (Black Label)
  7. Line Selector LS-2 (Silver Label)

Any assistance appreciated...

Thanks,

Sparky
 
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#2 ·
It seems to affect the asking price...because that's what the internet does to prices. It has no relationship to the quality and true value of the pedal, though. In most instances, there is absolutely no difference in the circuit. The components are the same components, and wave-soldering is wave-soldering no matter where it's done. Once in a while, change in where it is made is correlated with a change in the design. For instance, the DM-2 changed which delay chip it was using at one point. But none of the pedals you list have more than one schematic (hence design).
 
#9 ·
I agree with you. I wouldn't pay boutique prices for a 70's/80's boss pedal. They're all pretty bullet proof and all sound pretty good. The new waza line are as good as the old vintage boss pedals and even the standard line are probably as good. However the "Internet myths" are very powerful. "Internet myths" are very effective at sucking in the gullible to pony up lot of cash. And as long as there is an endless supply of said suckers (my self included in some past dealings) there will always be those that exploit that (my self included).
 
#5 ·
In theory, I suppose. And that would certainly be pertinent if one was talking about a product where implementing quality-control would be labour-intensive. For instance, if one was talking about neck parameters or setup, or point-to-point wiring on a tube amp. But I have to ask, has anyone here heard any stories of drops in quality-control when Boss shifted production of a pedal from Japan to somewhere else in East or Southeast Asia? Do the pedals produced in Japan sound any different from those produced in other Asian nations by the same manufacturer?

You've probably seen some of the Youtubes of Mike Matthews giving tours of the EHX facility. The boards are mass-produced. The enclosures are pretty standardized. Everything is assembled by immigrant women. I don't mean that in any dismissive way. Rather, are rooms full of Thai or Indonesian or Vietnamese women going to do something "different" than rooms of similarly semi-skilled (but equally conscientious) Central American or Mexican women?

So, unless the label change or country of origin is also associated with a change in design (as I noted in the case of the DM-2), or a documented drop (or improvement) in quality-control, label/country is simply mojo. I suppose one may have a hard time persuading a seller of that if they are hard-core believers in mojo and hype, and understand little about design.

I guess the short answer is that it does, but it shouldn't.
 
#4 ·
Check out Reverb.com to see what similar listings sold for, other similar sites would work as well. You can also use the Boss serial number reference site to date your pedals and see when they were made. The colour of the labels will matter in the pricing, especially in the older and discontinued pedals.
 
#10 · (Edited)
There's "vintage" and there's simply "older". If a design hasn't changed in 35+ years, how exactly is being 35 years old, vs 25, vs 15, vs new-in-box in any way different (apart from wear and tear on the controls and switches)? If it was the case that any of these were made using parts that have changed in quality over the years, or simply cannot be gotten anymore (e.g., some germanium transistors, pots with a very idiosyncratic taper), that would be one thing. If it was the case that there was component changes that resulted in different noise specs (e.g., I've found that in some of the Behringer Boss-clone pedals I have, they opted to use lower-power chips, at the expense of more noise), or different headroom (e.g., when Boss switched from the MN3005 fed a 9V supply to the MN3205, fed 5V, in the later-issue DM-2 pedals), that would be one thing.

But, normally, the term "vintage" is used to refer to a period of production when there was something distinctive about what was produced, and in this instance there simply ISN'T. A BF-2 is a BF-2 is a BF-2. I don't care if it was made in Japan, Cambodia, Eritrea or a Scarborough high-school shop class, because the design has not changed since the first ones. Yes, a survey of gutshots shows that they changed the model of trimmers used, and the part number of the chip used for the LFO changed (though it remained a low power FET op-amp), but that was it.

When Boss decided that there was greater long-term relilability of the trimpot settings using newer chips, they dropped the CE-2 model in 1983, and switched to the CE-3, et al. design such that nothing changed about the CE-2 (a very nice chorus sound, I might add) as a function of where it was made.

The NS-2 was first introduced in late 1987. Nothing has changed about the design in the subsequent 30 years. Boss uses a semi-proprietary chip (i.e., you can get them, but it is REALLY hard, and likely involves a trip to the Akihibara or very good connections). The CS-3 also uses a hard-to-get dbx chip. Boss doesn't embark on a product unless they can assure a steady and plentiful supply of the components. Often they get them made specially for them, but then they make/sell so many pedals, they can afford it.

The magic of the internet is that perceptions or opinions about something in one context, are haphazardly and superstitiously applied to another where they have no relevance. Is there a difference between Telecasters made in the USA vs Mexico vs Korea vs China? Yeah, probably. But those things are made of wood - a highly variable material whose treatment requires close attention - and are fundamentally mechanical devices, with some electronics thrown in for good measure. If a pedal is made using the identical components that I can order from Digikey, Mouser, Jameco, Farnell, Maplin, Tayda, and dozens of other electronic component distributors, and the same boards and layouts, using the same mass-produced enclosures, then how the heck does country of manufacture make any difference whatsoever? What we see is that a factor which is legitimately pertinent in one context (guitars) is presumed to be more broadly pertinent, simply because, well... you know...because...I read it somewhere.
 
#14 ·
Older electrons are wiser, smarter electrons. They know how to bond covalently without any youtube help or owners manual.

None of this millennial angst for those old, weathered transistors (although I hear there is an issue with them being bipolar, but I digress). They are faster and fatter and warmer and glassier and have much, much more haunting mojo. I'm not even going to get into the whole crystal lattice argument ...................
 
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