Spaceman Effects Shrinks its Explorer 6 Stage Optical Phaser

It’s a touch unfortunate that Spaceman could not release this last year within my ’2021 Year of the Phaser’, so it comes a little late in the day for me. I did though have the Explorer Deluxe on my ’nice-to-have’ wishlist - and for me it’s even nicer to have it in a this more compact and pedalboard friendly format.

While there will of course be some component changes between the Limited Deluxe edition and the Standard compact - my understanding is that everything has pretty much been kept intact - with the same core tone-generation components onboard. Even though they are described slightly different (byline) - they are both versions of the exact same 6 Stage Optical circuit - with the exact same controls - while a couple of knobs are labelled differently.

Controls - Rate (Speed), Resonance, Range (Sweep), Wave Shape, Volume (Level), Mix (Blend).

I don’t think this one will really challenge my own Phaser hierarchy too much - I feel I already own most of the best varieties attuned to my preferences. And the pricing is a touch higher here than I would have expected - at $279 / €329 / £279. Still it’s antother gorgeous looking Spaceman pedal - that I could happily own in each of its colourways - Silver (classic), Red and Black (Yellow text).

It’s still a handy and pretty decent sounding phaser - which is largely about its 6 Wave Shapes : Sine, Ramp Down, Ramp up, Triangle, Square and Inverted Manual mode. That forms its key advantage alongside its size. I would have loved to have seen tamp tempo here or some sort of secondary ramping footswitch - but I guess that’s not what Spaceman does.

This one means I still have at least circa 3 phasers to get alongside the Mu-Tron Phasor III and PastFX Foot Phase Deluxe!

So this one is definitely down on the acquisitions list while really not a priority - I will try to pick it up opportunistically at some latter stage.

Are any of you tempted by this - or have one already? Who of you has the original Explorer Deluxe - and would you be looking to supplement or replace that with the more compact edition?