torinkrell wrote:Has anyone else here compared Minimoog Model Ds?
Exhaustively.
There's many changes everywhere.
One of the largest changes is that earlier Minis drove their filters harder than later ones.
But there's just sooo many changes between early and later ones.
Power supply, wood type, wood thickness, panel type (metal, vinyl, vinyl with metal backing), wheel types, rectifier board parts and values, addition of small circuit changes (VCO high end tracking improvement via delay lines added), gold plated connections on later ones, countersunk nuts on later mod wheel brackets, all sealed pots on early ones, AC line voltage switches on later ones, fuse values, different value resistors on the tuning pots (3.3K vs 5.1K),DPDT type rocker switches with doubled-up contacts for reliability while earlier ones used SPDT switches, etc, etc, ... I could go on for quite some time.
I've documented many of these changes between new and old ones.
But I don't always know exactly when or what serial number these changes were made at the factory.
Online info is sometimes wrong too as a person might have an earlier Mini that was later updated and they didn't know.
Many changes are easier to spot when you have several Minis available to compare and few people except synth techs might have 4 or 5 Minis available at once for comparison.
Sometimes I even have to ask my clients which changes they'd prefer because they'll deliver an early Mini for restoration, but then ask for any later factory changes made.
But they might not know that very late Minis had softer A-440 signals or that the filter gain structure was changed or whatever.
Not every change made is considered an improvement by everyone.
As another example, some players can't stand the later ribbed mod and pitch wheels.
They got used to rolling their palms on their smooth, earlier wheels.
That might hurt if tried on later wheels.
Anyway, there were lots of changes made through the years.
Most were fairly minor, but everything adds up to sometimes make one Mini sound different than another.
Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime. - R. Pupkin