What distinguishes the Vampower Leadmaster apart from other pedals on the market?

One of the problems with mass produced pedals is that they are manufactured without quality checks on individual components or transistors. No two guitar pedals will sound exactly the same and not every guitar pedal will sound as good as it should without being tested by a musician who knows what it should sound like. I wouldn’t send anything out that I didn’t strongly feel sounded great.

I primarily use vintage new old stock components, it is not something nostalgic about. When designing the Leadmaster circuit I’ve used just about everything you could imagine including the run of the mill components that you can buy from many parts sites that are manufactured out of China. There is nothing wrong with using those components, many successful boutique pedal makers certainly use those. I just personally did not like the sound of a lot of those components.

Oddly enough, I had actually auditioned hand made in the USA capacitors that were around $7 dollars each (buying into the hype) and to my surprise they did not sound as good as a particular 20 cent Chinese capacitor I compared them to.  

Not everything that is vintage is always going to sound better than a newer component. I have experienced this with diode shootouts. Every part in this circuit I have selected because it sounds exceptionally good. If that means I have to invest more time and resources to secure rare components or limited myself to only producing in small batches that is worth it to me. Vampower doesn’t work unless it has a reputation of sounding great.