It's certainly easier to build, in my opinion. That's a big plus.
That was the focus of the revision. The two small boards were leftovers from the Extended Foreplay III upgrade, and we decided to abandon them and create a dedicated board for the purpose that is immensely easier to wire.
We abandoned the 2N2907 and replaced it with the physically different but electrically identical PN2907 to eliminate the possibility of swapping those transistors.
We changed the R1 on the larger PC board to a Dale part so that it looks visually different than the R1 on the small board, as swapping these resistors was a very common error. We also combined the series string R2 resistors on the big board to a single resistor per side.
There is now a heavy emphasis on properly mounting the TIP50 transistors, as this was rapidly becoming the most common build mistake with the Speedball. It was also the mistake that was the most difficult to get builders to look for.
We also split the build out into two parts, so that the front board can be built, installed, and evaluated before the big board goes in. In may help threads, I end up recommending that the 6080 be removed to test the boards on the 12AU7, so we are just doing this up front.
We have not noticed a sonic difference from these changes.
-PB
