Tonefiend Forum

Here's my take:

a) Germanium transistors have genuinely unique tonal properties not available from newer transistors. (It's practically the only component where I buy into the "vintage voodoo" stuff.)

b) There are a lot of old transistors that have either "gone off," or never worked that well in the first place.

But after a few years of playing with the things, I'm amazed by the extent to which all properly functioning germanium transistors sound similar. I just don't hear anything exceptional about the coveted/rare/expensive parts vs. more commonly available models like the AC128. All properly functioning germanium transistors sound great to me.

Comments?

What I gather matters most is hfe and that there is some leakage or they are harder to bias right. R.G. Keen's Geofex site has some details on selecting and using germs. I think it was there that it was pointed out that while there are germ NPNs, the quality isn't as good, so positive grounding could be easier than sourcing and selecting a good one.

Quote from bear on November 28, 2012, 14:36
What I gather matters most is hfe and that there is some leakage or they are harder to bias right. R.G. Keen's Geofex site has some details on selecting and using germs. I think it was there that it was pointed out that while there are germ NPNs, the quality isn't as good, so positive grounding could be easier than sourcing and selecting a good one.

Yeah, that's my experience. I don't build any postivie-ground stuff, but I use the "flip the circuit" trick to deploy PNP transistors, like in this site's Fiendmaster project. (Some, even Keen, IIRC, warn against this method, but I think it works and sounds great, and a lot of other builders seem to agree.)

A couple of years ago I was buying NPN Germanium transistors from Small Bear. After purchasing a dozen or so, they cut me off! Steve said they were in such short supply that he wanted to conserve them, so that every player who wanted to build an NPN fuzz could have a chance. Fair enough.

But now (as discussed in this thread, there are suddenly a lot of germanium transistors on the market — even NPNs, like this one from Mammoth, I haven't tried those yet, but I've tried a lot of the NPNs, and they all sound fab!