Hi.
Looking though past threads in the forum I found some references to AC188s that indicated they might be ok for fuzzface of easyface circuits. AC188s have similar characteristics to AC128s except a higher hFE range (100 to 500). I had access to some cheap ones (about US$1.20).
Anyway, I bought 8 AC188s and 4 had low leakage (yay!), but a couple had high hFE (220 and 250) (hmm....). Trying all four in an easyface surprised me. I really liked two with quite high hFE (180 and 200). But the others (130 and 280) weren't too bad, either. :D
With a couple of simple mods (like using a small resistor (100 ohm) on the emitter of Q1) these babies were really singing!!
cheers