I have a Phase 90 on my board since around 2005-ish.. to be honest, I didn't have much experience with phasers until I got it and when I decided to get a phaser, I didn't do much research, it just looked good, I heard good things about it, or maybe just "things" and I loved the simplicity of it's layout.. so I got one..
Just a Phase
When I first plugged it in, it was just a nice phaser, nothing special. I reproduced some familiar phaser tones with it and was pretty happy with it, but again, nothing out of the ordinary. As it grew older on my board I learned how to use it with my other pedals and guitars. A phaser set up wrong just sounds bad, because it's a pretty radical effect, and the Phase 90 has no depth or blend control, so when it's on, it is just ON!
A Tone Sucker
Ok, sorry MXR, but my Phase 90 is a little tone sucker. When I first plugged it in, I couldn't tell that, but after chaining several pedals including a cry-baby and the Phase 90 - both non-true bypass and no buffer, I realized that I'm losing my high-end.. so I started removing pedals and switching cables, until I identified the sucker. Actually there were two of them - the Cry-Baby and the Phase 90.. when I did an AB test I realized that the effect is REALLY bad and I had to fix that. But I didn't really fix the problem, at least not all of it. I removed the Cry-Baby from my board convincing myself that I will use it when I need it, but that rarely happen, because what's not on the board is never used - in my case at least. The other thing that I did was replacing all of my cables to Mogami Gold. Before the Mogami I had several types of really old cables, I don't even know which was what.. that made the effect of the Phase 90 barely noticeable, but it's still there and I learned to live with that.
Why Bother?
So, why didn't I just kick the Phase 90 out and got another phaser? Well, I almost did that actually, but as much as that pedal pisses me off at times, it's shitty artifacts and simplicity are what makes it magical to me. To be more specific, I'm talking about the volume boost and the dirt that's accompanies the cool phase swells, either by design or by accident...
For those who are not familiar with this pedal, depending on which pedals you combine it with, especially dirt pedals, when you turn the effect on, it might add a significant amount of volume to your signal. Secondly, it might also start to overdrive a bit and I'm not talking about pushing your amp into overdrive, I'm talking about the pedal itself!
Verdict
The Phase 90 is almost like an instrument. You can't control the sound that it makes, but if you like what it does to your ear-drums, you just love it. So if that's you, get one now before MXR removes them from the production line to make room for digital Phase 9000 super emulators that can make phase sounds, take your dog for a walk and make you coffee..