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1n34As seem to be going for silly money everywhere except musikding, who are nice guys but I don't want to have to pay shipping from germany just for a handful of diodes!

There are good deals on 1n60p on ebay- how do they sound?



Likewise there are some good deals on NPN AC176s (and Dr Tweek has those too at good prices)- working on the assumption half of them will be unusably leaky, do they have the 'mojo' sound? would I be better off just piggybacking 2n3904s? I suppose I should try it for myself but I'd love to hear you guys' input.

Be careful because most 1N60Ps I've seen recently are Schottky not germanium.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/50PCS-1N60P-DO-35 ... 45f3d3e881

They're far too cheap to be germanium surely- are they just lying?

Yes they're the Schottky ones. These are Ge:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT

and they're not a bad price considering.

Certaintly looks reasonable, thanks!

You got much expereince with NPN Ge transistors?

I've got a few Ge NPN transistors and have used them in a few things. They're a bit more hit and miss than PNP so it's harder to find them with decent gain and low leakage, or at least I've found it hard in the past with the ones I've bought. I'm sure there was a thread on here not so long ago when someone mentioned buying a batch of AC176s and a lot going straight into the bin. It may have been whoismarykelly but not 100% sure.

IvIark wrote:I've got a few Ge NPN transistors and have used them in a few things. They're a bit more hit and miss than PNP so it's harder to find them with decent gain and low leakage, or at least I've found it hard in the past with the ones I've bought. I'm sure there was a thread on here not so long ago when someone mentioned buying a batch of AC176s and a lot going straight into the bin. It may have been whoismarykelly but not 100% sure.

I also picked up a batch of those Tungsram AC176's. Complete and utter garbage. Out of 100 less than 8 might be usuable. Those transisors leaked more than a hemopheliac breakdancing on a bed of machetes and the gain on the ones that pass the test are all in the 40-50 range. I heard Tungsram was more miss than hit but I expected a little better than that.

jb351 wrote:

IvIark wrote:I've got a few Ge NPN transistors and have used them in a few things. They're a bit more hit and miss than PNP so it's harder to find them with decent gain and low leakage, or at least I've found it hard in the past with the ones I've bought. I'm sure there was a thread on here not so long ago when someone mentioned buying a batch of AC176s and a lot going straight into the bin. It may have been whoismarykelly but not 100% sure.

I also picked up a batch of those Tungsram AC176's. Complete and utter garbage. Out of 100 less than 8 might be usuable. Those transisors leaked more than a hemopheliac breakdancing on a bed of machetes and the gain on the ones that pass the test are all in the 40-50 range. I heard Tungsram was more miss than hit but I expected a little better than that.

Not much room for interpretation there then!

Thanks for the warning.

I think most people suggest you go Russian if you want NPN Germaniums... can't think of the names off the top of my head though.