VS Jekyll and Hyde = Tube screamer?

[cloy26]

So, I am looking to buy a tube screamer. I did quite a bit of research on here with the amazing sticky and came to the conclusion of a ts7. I found one for 20 dollars and I am probably going to buy it. However, I have a Visual Sound Jekyll and Hyde OD/Distortion already and it says that the Overdrive circuitry is the same as the ts808. Any validity in this? I cannot find any *real* info backing this up. I can't really read schematics and can't even find one.

I found this:

FWIW, I have an old silver one and traced the green (Jekyll) side and it is indeed TS-808. I've compared it side-by-side with some other Tubescreamers (some were even boutique TS-808 clones) and for most things it's my favorite Tubescreamer.

But I just can't leave anything alone so I went inside to do some simple Tubescreamer mods (which Mark will tell you takes it further and further away from the goodness of a Tubescreamer...and I would agree with him by the way ).

My mods were very simple and easy to explain...and they're very common or typical TS mods, here they are:

Changed the .047uF input cap to .1uF. A little more bass (or less bass cut)...seems some TSs benefit from this and others don't...I thought this unit did benefit from it.

Changed the 51K resistor in series with the Drive pot to 10K. This just makes low Drive settings have...less drive. But high Drive settings (which I never use) are pretty much unchanged.

Added a germanium diode in series with one of the existing silicon diodes. Makes the clipping assymetrical, but not as much as adding a silicon diode. It also reduces distortion a tiny bit.

That's it...and it's still my favorite Tubescreamer...but by an even bigger margin now.

Here

I mean, it's 20 dollars so I will get the ts7 regardless, but how close is the Jekyll to a "real" tube screamer?