Germanium transistors

[RoyVorster]

Hello,

I am completely new to this forum and to the entire stompbox building community. I have played guitar for 4 years and I like to experiment a bit with electronics (Arduino, modded Boss Sd-1) so when I recently got a non-working Electric Mistress from 1978 I got into this. Now I'd like your information on some germanium transistors. Someone locally has a lot of transistors from the AC serie.

AC117
AC124
AC125
AC126
AC127
AC128
AC128/01
AC132
AC172
AC175
AC184
AC185
AC188/01

Which of these are used the most and are there any which are just not useful?

Thankyou very much!

[smallbearelec]

These are all candidates. The ones I recognize as most common are the AC128 (PNP) and the AC127 (NPN), but any of the other numbers might well also yield usable parts. If you learn to sort them yourself,

http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/ffselect.htm

you can figure out which ones you want to build with. If your source has more of them than you need for your own use, contact me at smallbearelec@ix.netcom.com. I'm always buying and will pay cash or store credit.

Regards
SD

[pupil]

Awhile ago I bought a bulk lot of AC125 (PNP) transistors. They work great in most classic fuzz circuits I've tried, and especially in tonebender circuit variations. From what I've read on other forums, and in my own experience, the higher gain AC125s are leakier. That can be a problem in some circuits, but not for others. The Q3 position in tonebender circuits actually sounds very good with a high gain leaky transistor there.

[RoyVorster]

Thankyou very much for your fast answers. I went ahead and ordered them all for only 10 euros!

I figured the other ones could be experimented with too.

[sturgeo]

Awhile ago I bought a bulk lot of AC125 (PNP) transistors. They work great in most classic fuzz circuits I've tried, and especially in tonebender circuit variations. From what I've read on other forums, and in my own experience, the higher gain AC125s are leakier. That can be a problem in some circuits, but not for others. The Q3 position in tonebender circuits actually sounds very good with a high gain leaky transistor there.

Which variation were they? I've got a sealed load of VI but haven't tried them in anything yet.

[pupil]

mine are variation V. and are the "top hat"  style. i bet your high gain ones could make for pretty nasty (in a good way) fuzz box