LPB1 question

[M. Spencer]

Hey folks, so I was having trouble with an LPB1 on my breadboard with these specs from the tagboard site. Researching why it sounded distorted at low volumes I found this post with different component values. Swapping out the resistor values was the trick, it fired up properly and all was happy in the land of electronics.

Obviously builders have been successful with the above linked tagboardeffects layout or else it wouldn't have been verified. My question is, assuming all the correct components were used, why would mine not work with the original values, but function correctly with the next set of values? Do si transistor hfes vary that much?

[IvIark]

The values used in the tag layout are the original LPB1 with less common values.  If you swap the 360R for a 390R there will be less gain from the stage and so you would expect it to distort less.  But the old values used as definitely correct for that particular version, as per this from Jack's site

http://www.muzique.com/schem/lpb1.gif