What is the difference between a reissue and original MXR?
The MXR company went out of business in the early to mid 1980s due to competition from Japan (Boss) and products that were getting worse and worse (black plastic series of MXR pedals). In the 90s Dunlop bought the rights to the MXR name and started making some again, the Distortion+, Phase-90, Dynacomp, etc. The biggest difference between the original and reissue is in the CONSTRUCTION of the reissue – it is made to be built cheaply. This is done by attaching the jacks to the circuit board, also the switch, pots, power jack and LED are attached to the board. Basically everything you need is on the circuit board and it can be pulled from the shell and used bare. The problem is that the jacks used do not have good action or contact, they often jam. And the nuts can strip and get misaligned which makes it even worse. Since the switch is hard soldered to the circuit board it is VERY difficult to do a true bypass mod, there is not really enough room to use a different switch. The components
