Okay after catching up some sleep after my mini vacation, I started testing again. The differences in color is the nodes themselves. My best guess is when mine started failing last Christmas season Ray sent me some extras nodes to replace as they failed. They look similar to the ip68 he replaced mine with after the season. They were the same width/circumference as opposed the the skinnier with flat sides as my originals and were sealed almost to the end where the wires go in. But there is a distinct difference in color between those and the ip68 version. Most noticable in white and purple(red & blue on). One interesting thing I noticed during testing is sometimes when you turn each slider off, then on, then off ect. you may get a different color occasionally if 2 strands are set to the same address. It is easier to see if you grab one slider and drag it down slowly you will see the strands pulse occasionally. If you use the keyboard and decrease one step at a time you will see the color change. Both version ssc's did it and it was random and only occasional. Since I never saw it happen during last years shows I am not going to worry about it.