I just sorted about 60 2N5133s for gain...

[Nitefly182]

In my rookie days (which aren't that far off lol) I made a few big muffs with NOS 2N5133s I got from one of the web surplus places. I just randomly grabbed 4 from the bag and the muffs turned out to be medium gain. They didn't saturate like my skreddy muffs do and I thought that was weird. They sounded good but they were better for rhythm than high gain sustained lead sounds. I finally built the gain tester for germaniums the other night and I set it up so I could test PNP and NPN transistors. So I sat down this afternoon and sorted through my various muff transistors (Smallbear SE4010, Smallbear 2N5133, Surplus 2N5133) and here are my results:

I only had 4 2N5133 from Smallbear. They were all under 90 hfe. I believe one was only 30 hfe.

Of the 8 SE4010 I have, 6 measured true to Steve's guarantee at 150-170 hfe. Two measured in at or around 300 hfe

Of the 45-50 other 2n5133s I had from the surplus shop here is the breakdown:

30% under 100hfe
30% between 100 and 200 hfe
20% between 200 and 300 hfe
20% over 300 hfe

I guess I just grabbed 4 from the 60% of lower values when I built those old muffs or I just had rather low values in the Q1 spot which made those pedals I made lower gain. Im stuffing a board with all 4 transistors over 300 hfe which some closer to 400 hfe right now and will follow up with info about whether the resulting pedal is saturated or close to my older muff builds.

Board is stuffed - carbon comps are just there to look cool but if they make a difference thats fine too. caps are kemet box ceramics.

[jefe]

Stupid question: These are Si tranny's, correct? Any reason to measure them using the Ge tester?

The reason I ask is because my DMM can measure transistors... just wondering if I'm doing something wrong. Also, I've been playing around with the triangle muff on my breadboard, so I'm interested to read your follow up.

[Nitefly182]

The GE tester allows you to test for leakage as well as DC gain. You can test silicon devices with it but you dont have to subtract any leakage value. Just multiply the dc gain by 100 to get the hfe of the device. I dont have a DMM that can measure hfe so this is the only way to do it for now. I did order a cheap DMM with an hfe test from futurlec though so that should help a lot.

[jefe]

Cool, that's kinda what I figured... sorta... lol

Good luck, and keep us posted!

[bumblebee]

This is why I dont like 5133's for big muffs, too low gain. I like my big muffs trannies to have gain of around 600 and that is why i use BC109C and 2N5089.

[SonicVI]

I don't think you'll notice much of a change in volume, distortion or saturation with the higher gain trannies.   I bought 20 5133's from Small bear a while back and built my triangle clone with the 4 highes which were in the upper 300's-low 400's.  It didn't turn out sounding much different than my original  ram's head with far 5133's (Hfe's all around 100 or less) in it.

[Nitefly182]

Finished and thoroughly put through its paces.

It is indeed higher gain than the original pedals I built. This one saturates like my other muffs and has plenty of extra gain above that point that I usually set the pedal which is nice. I have plans to build another one with significantly higher gain transistors to see if maybe doubling the gain has an effect. Research tells me the effect wont be dramatic but the BC109/BC239 combo I have used in some other fuzzes might be pretty cool. Al-in-all this pedal did just what I thought it would do which is a pleasant surprise. I still had to sort through 60 transistors to get enough in the range I wanted to make less than 5 pedals total so ultimately I would say its not worth it unless you want fancy looking parts in your pedal.

[bioroids]

I have plans to build another one with significantly higher gain transistors to see if maybe doubling the gain has an effect.

You can maybe try Darlingtons instead of regular NPNs, there you have transistors with really high Hfe. Has these been tested before?

Luck

Miguel