I'm currently using a vintage model thats about 30 years old... I'm not sure of the differences of the original and new versions though. It can reproduce Jimi Hendrix's fuzz pretty well with the volume, sustain, tone, and blend all set at 5 o' clock... Almost seems like the pedal's engineer's were aiming for that. You can dial up the blend a little further and get an evil sounding fuzz, although you wont get much clarity on chords with these settings. The blend dials in either more of the pedals effect (at 10) and more of the natural guitar sound (at 1). The tone dials in more treble (at 10) and more low end (at 1). The sustain just configures how long the fuzz effect lasts on a note played. I also own an Arbiter Fuzz Face, and this pedal is better in that it has much more sustain and drive, where you have to run the Arbiter on overdrive to get much sound, you run this pedal on clean. Only reason I didn't give it a ten is because theres probably something better out there.

Its pretty much all made of medal... The unit's case, buttons, input jacks, etc. I'm sure you could drop it on the floor without much problems, although I dont want to try with my vintage version.