All guitarists are in search of that “tone” whether it’s a rock legend that they want to copy or just the quest for the perfect tone that raises the hair on their back. “Tone” is something that can’t really even be described. It’s a combination of so many minutely, user-dependant, changes in sound that it can never really be achieved. Even fi you use Stevie Ray Vaughn’s guitar, his amps and pedals, the “tone” will still be different because of how you pick the strings, how heavy your fingers press down, what type of strings you’re using, the weather, the roomtype, the mic…. and on and on.
A big thing with companies now, is to offer re-issues. Saying that it uses the exact same technology from 1970 is just too hard to actually do. Even if its the same company, same products and components, the variance will still change the tone subtly. A great example is the Jimi Hendrix re-issue Crybaby Wah pedal from Dunlop. Because it’s marketed as being a re-issue of a vintage pedal and has a price tag that’s almost $100 more than the regular crybaby, you would think that it would have a completely different setup internally than a brand new crybaby.
Looking around for schematics, I found an awesome article about the differences between the re-issue and a brand new basic one. The only difference that they mention is a sweep capacitor, which runs all of 15 cents! So when you’re buying the Jimi Hendrix reissue, you’re basically paying an extra $80 for one part that’s less that a quarter and a new paint job. Check out the article here, about halfway down.