Bellum MKI vs MKII

[BassVD]

So, for about a year or two I've been thinking about building myself a DBA Fuzz War and I know about the two versions. With both versions people reported that there were mistakes or couldn't get theirs to work, but others said nothing's wrong with the layouts, just that the layout is very picky on the transistors. Then PedalPCB came out with pcb's for MKI and MKII. Legend has it that the two versions of the Fuzz War don't really sound alike, but I can't seem to find any useful input (or videos) comparing both versions...
Does anyone build both and can provide me with their experiences and impressions of the MKI and MKII?

Cheers!

 

[manfesto]

The problem with the v1 is that not only is it a finicky circuit in its original state, there are multiple variants floating around, often with parts installed that don’t match the value silkscreened onto the PCB. Seems like DBA were really just putting together Fuzz Wars with whatever they had on-hand that actually worked, changing parts as they go to accommodate.

Here’s a thread with some info (including @PedalPCB explaining the rationale for the Bellum MkI’s values):

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/bellum-fuzz-mki-parts-values.5345/

and here’s my build report wherein apparently the trace PedalPCB was working from had a 680p cap installed in a spot marked 680n, which I think may have been a manufacturing error because that made the tone control unusable until I replaced the 680p with a 100n:

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/bellum-fuzz-mki.5646/

Worth checking out is the FuzzDog Raw Fuzz V1 build doc, specifically their “stable” BoM. By going with 2N5088s and 820K biasing resistors (instead of what were likely carefully selected low-gain 2N5089s), they get the circuit to work every time.

http://pedalparts.co.uk/docs/RawFuzz-V1.pdf

I built a Bellum MkI with 2N5088s all with hFEs between 270-300, 820K biasing resistors, and all 100nF caps since that was what was in the one PedalPCB traced, and it is a pretty dang brutal fuzz.

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The Bellum MkII is a Big Muff with no clipping in one gain stage and germanium clipping in the other.

http://pedalparts.co.uk/docs/RawFuzz-V2.pdf

I haven’t built one yet but bet I can imagine more or less how it sounds given the lineage.