Vero vs Point to Point vs PCB vs SMD

[BossMann73]

Since my BBR thread is turing into a discussion on this topic, I figured I'd start a fresh thread on it.

IMO, Vero vs PCB vs SMD is not an issue. I have pedals made by all three methods and I can't discern any real difference in them other than the ones on vero sound "rawer" to me and not as hi-fi. But this may be my imagination.

Not being an engineer I am not qualified to really discuss any potential differences, so I would love to see how this discussion unfolds.

My personal take is I don't care what kind of construction is there as long as the pedal sounds good.

And my own personal musing is how does an electron know if it's travelling down a pcb or vero or point to point or smd?

In other words, is there a frikkin difference!!???!!????!!??!??!!??!!??

[D.o.S.]

Yeah I can't say I give a shit as long as it works.

[Kacey Y]

Doesn't make any difference from a user standpoint. Vero is easier to repair. PCB is convenient for manufacturers, because they can be fabricated in mass quantity. SMD is good for having very tight layouts, makes it a bit harder to service and easier to just replace the entire PCB most of the time (not in every case). As far as tone goes, it doesn't matter. They're all just different form factors of the same circuits and components. I've heard this from multiple custom builders and electrical engineers and I've compared the exact same circuit with different build types and never heard even a slight difference. Personally I think when people get picky about this sort of, they're usually looking for something to justify what they paid or some extra since of pride in an item. It's all fine, so long as the quality is there with the parts and the build.

[UglyCasanova]

Yeah I can't say I give a shit as long as it works.

[Chankgeez]

In other words, is there a frikkin difference!!???!!????!!??!??!!??!!??

Of course there's a difference.

[MechaGodzilla]

Yeah I can't say I give a shit as long as it works.

... and sounds cool

[D.o.S.]

Natch

[rustywire]

It makes a difference in analogue audio electronics, although it may range from negligible to conspicuous.
I didn't read this on some fancy audiophile forum... although I'm all but certain they echo [it].
This was gleaned from the Bell Lab papers I read some years back, on circuit design, construction methods, metallurgy & alloys.
It was tedious yet ultimately fascinating to approach as a non-engineer/recovering Legomaniac. The info on magnetism and EMF alone opened my eyes to subtle sources of noise, helping identify spots where I could improve my pedalboard results just by rearranging the physical layout (people who've used their wah too close to a power transformer will vouch)

So yes, it matters; YMMV. How much? It depends
Most people will probably never need to concern themselves with the minutia.

[mathias]

Grounding can be better on circuit boards, generally, than flying leads. But as things get closer together (surface mount), there's the chance that signal could bleed between parts of the circuit that are supposed to be isolated. That said, we're pretty good at printing circuitboards and building ICs that isolate the signal.. otherwise your computer and smartphone would never work; it'd get all its 1's and 0's mixed up.

Things with a lot of gain will tend to pick up other signals, though, and the traces in circuitboards can act like antennas. (Same goes for flying leads.. it's just easier to cancel the EMFs with twisted wires on flying leads.) In general, a good designer can do just fine with surface mount components.

Surface mount is cheaper at scale than through-hole. It's more work to do surface mount on the small scale (without a factory of robots or people who only do SMD all day..) so through-hole is what most boutique builders are going to use, unless they're using stuff like the Spin chip. Vero is really only meant for prototyping. Point-to-point is obsolete in industry these days, but remains a good construction method on the small scale and allows things to be replaced rather easier. (Arguably, I'd say a circuit board is only slightly less good for the replacing faulty parts / fixing in general.)

I hope this helps?

[jrfox92]

As I tried to convey in the other thread, there's not really a huge difference function wise between the different versions, just my perception of which method is more "professional" looking, especially in a context of production runs, etc.
1) If it's vero/perf/PTP, I can build it, likely with ease (granted, I can also build anything on PCB). If I can build it, odds are I'm not buying it.
2)

Vero is easier to repair.

I'm curious about how you came to that conclusion.
99 times out of 100, in my experience, PCB's were easier to repair than vero.
Generally, in my opinion, the difficulty of repairs goes like this: through-hole PCB < vero < SMD < perf < PTP.
3) Which would you prefer to see inside of your $150 pedal if you opened it up?

or

[whoismarykelly]

For the switch which is the most likely thing I'll need to replace I'll take the vero pedal. Replacing the footswitch on that PCB pedal means desoldering every one of those little flying leads to the daughterboard, replacing them with longer ones, and then dropping in a new switch after tracing the daughterboard connections. Or you can spend ages trying to remove that tiny daughterboard with 9 plated through connections.

[cherler]

If you order the daughter boards in bulk you could probably just get rid of that one and put a new one in with the new switch though.

[Kacey Y]

I'm curious about how you came to that conclusion.

Everything is dependent on context, but if a component fails in a vero circuit, you just desolder the connection and solder in a new piece. It's very difficult for say a burst capacitor to burn out the surrounding trace like on a PCB and very easy to diagnose problems with connections or layout. That doesn't apply to very complex circuits, but vero doesn't lend itself well to complex circuits because of the nature of how the circuit path connections are laid out. It's not convenient for creating a very efficient layout with lots of components packed in tightly, it's good for very simple circuits and/or for builders that don't have a lot of experience with schematics and translating them to complex PCB layouts. I know some builders that use vero for custom mods of simple circuits, because it's very easy to create from scratch without any involved prototyping. You can go straight from a breadboard to a vero board in a lot of cases, but it's terribly inefficient for any kind of regular production product, given the amount of work involved. Unless the builder is selling the vero aspect as a premium feature and being well compensated for their labor.

EDIT: Not saying PCB isn't CLEANER, in fact that was part of my original point. That picture you posted just sort of reinforces what I said. It's messy, but if you had to desolder one of those components, they're spread out over a much bigger area, with more space in between them. It's less of a precision operation to replace a part or diagnose a problem. Which isn't necessary a feature that make vero worth using, compared to all the downsides. At least in some kind of commercial application. For DIY and small batch, maybe.

[Mosfed]

I thought I cared once a long time ago and now I realized that I don't. Vero doesn't sound any more analog or less hifi.

[01010111]

Yeah I can't say I give a shit as long as it works.