Do These Look Like Real Vintage AC128's?.

[zombiwoof]

Saw these on Ebay, but they come from China and could be either modern production or re-labeled transistors of a different type:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-AC128-Germanium-PNP-Transistor-For-Fuzz-Pedal-Very-Rare-X-5pcs-/160692801716

They have "BEL" printed on them, I know there was a tube plant in India called BEL that was part of the Philips group, maybe they made or distributed transistors also, but I'm skeptical about these.  They do have the larger can that the vintage AC128's did, but so did many other transistors.  They are also not tested and they give no gain ranges for them.  Anyone seen any of these before?.

Maybe Steve at Small Bear has run into these?.  Steve....?

Thanks,
Al

[JustinFun]

No idea if they're geniune or not, but $26 for 5 untested AC128s seems very steep to me. I wouldn't pay more than £1 ($1.50) or so each.

Also: "very rare!!!" - really?

[zombiwoof]

No idea if they're geniune or not, but $26 for 5 untested AC128s seems very steep to me. I wouldn't pay more than £1 ($1.50) or so each.

Also: "very rare!!!" - really?

The large can AC128's like these are rare, if they are real ones.  These are not the small-can AC128's with the bottom flange and emitter tab that are abundant these days, those are more modern (usually Tungsram) AC128's that don't sound the same as the vintage ones, from most reports.  Here's a good article about AC128's:

http://www.jacquesstompboxes.com/ac128.htm

The first example in the article ("the real ones") are the rare ones, in the larger case.
I just wonder if these ones being sold are true vintage AC128's, or fakes of some kind.

Al

[R.G.]

Someone telling you how rare their goods are is trying to justify the price.

The realness or vintage-ness of AC128s or any other specific type-number of transistor has little to do with how it will sound. Many real, vintage, no-fooling AC128s in real, vintage, no-fooling Fuzz Faces sounded terrible. This is the reason that sorting and grading germanium devices has become the standard.

Someone who does not give you a guarantee of pretesting results may well have obtained the fallout of a testing/matching program and it may be that **100%** of a picked-over lot of real, vintage, no-fooling [insert device number here] may not sound good.

Just saying.

[smallbearelec]

Maybe Steve at Small Bear has run into these?.  Steve....?

I have not, and I agree that the seller's price is waaay too optimistic. For comparison (and better assurance of a reasonable yield of usable parts), please check out my bulk germanium lots:

http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Categories?category=Germanium+Transistors%3ABulk+%22Rough-Sorted%22+Lots

I resisted getting into this for years, and two things happened:

--I got tired of refusing orders for a few dozen pieces from people who wanted small lots of decent parts.
--One of my sources, a surplus dealer/brokerage not well-known to the public, started asking me to be an outlet for some of his stock. It's good material, not always well-known numbers, sometimes house-numbered, but it will be what I say it is and I think the prices are fair.

You can't "cherry-pick," but you can return an order unsoldered if not happy.

Happy Labor Day!
SD

[Electric Warrior]

The large can AC128's like these are rare, if they are real ones.  These are not the small-can AC128's with the bottom flange and emitter tab that are abundant these days, those are more modern (usually Tungsram) AC128's that don't sound the same as the vintage ones, from most reports.  Here's a good article about AC128's:

http://www.jacquesstompboxes.com/ac128.htm

The first example in the article ("the real ones") are the rare ones, in the larger case.
I just wonder if these ones being sold are true vintage AC128's, or fakes of some kind.

Al

Haven't seen any BEL AC128s before, but they might be old, indeed. Guess the Tungsrams are not all that modern either.

AC128s in TO-1 cans are still being made tody. I know New Jersey Semiconductor makes some and so did Magnatec until recently.

[zombiwoof]

Someone telling you how rare their goods are is trying to justify the price.

The realness or vintage-ness of AC128s or any other specific type-number of transistor has little to do with how it will sound. Many real, vintage, no-fooling AC128s in real, vintage, no-fooling Fuzz Faces sounded terrible. This is the reason that sorting and grading germanium devices has become the standard.

Someone who does not give you a guarantee of pretesting results may well have obtained the fallout of a testing/matching program and it may be that **100%** of a picked-over lot of real, vintage, no-fooling [insert device number here] may not sound good.

Just saying.

I am well aware of the things you are saying, I just wanted to know if anyone who has had a lot of experience with real vintage AC128's had any opinions about the ones in this auction.  If I decided to try these, I would want to know if they are in truth vintage AC128's and not fakes, and I would also ask the seller what range of gains his batches test at.  If I am not sure of these things, I wouldn't buy them.  Basically, I thought maybe someone had seen "BEL" transistors before, or had bought some of these and could comment on them, or recognized them as one of the modern large case types that have been made by a couple of companies lately (like Magnetek, I've seen them in a couple of online electronics stores).
If these were actual vintage AC128's, and they could be had in the right gains for certain fuzz pedals, the price is really not that out-of-line.  The fact that they are being sold by a Chinese seller could be a clue that they are re-labeled fakes or modern remakes, so I just wanted to know if anyone actually had any knowledge of these specific transistors.

Al

[zombiwoof]

The large can AC128's like these are rare, if they are real ones.  These are not the small-can AC128's with the bottom flange and emitter tab that are abundant these days, those are more modern (usually Tungsram) AC128's that don't sound the same as the vintage ones, from most reports.  Here's a good article about AC128's:

http://www.jacquesstompboxes.com/ac128.htm

The first example in the article ("the real ones") are the rare ones, in the larger case.
I just wonder if these ones being sold are true vintage AC128's, or fakes of some kind.

Al

Haven't seen any BEL AC128s before, but they might be old, indeed. Guess the Tungsrams are not all that modern either.

AC128s in TO-1 cans are still being made tody. I know New Jersey Semiconductor makes some and so did Magnatec until recently.

The smaller-case Tungsram are more modern than the larger-can vintage types, and there seem to be thousands of them around, you can buy full bags of them from Ebay, and most of the tested pairs of AC128's you find listed are the Tungsrams.  They are more modern in
that they were made in the last 20 years or so AFAIK.

I know about those newer remakes by Magnetec and the other company, that's one of the reasons I asked about these ones from China, they could be just the newer ones being sold as vintage.  Steve at Small Bear checked those out, but the samples they sent all tested at lower gains than you would use in a Fuzz Face or such, and they wanted a lot of money to supply specific gain ranges, so he gave up on them.  They also made new NKT275's, and OC81's as I recall.  I think Digi-Key was selling some of those, and they wanted something like $5-8 each for untested stock.

Thanks,
Al

[kingswayguitar]

smallbear is listing 2SB77 Hitachi

i scored some of these from another supply and the were ace

tons of leakage in the few i had but they really sustained somehow
hope you have just as good luck

[Arcane Analog]

Mojo!

[newperson]

Question for SmallBear,
Why are your 2SB** transistors not marked PNP or NPN?  Or am I missing that information? 

Example page:
http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=1425


2SB176 Matsushita
SKU: 0116G
NOS with full leads, these are the "O" gain bucket. Unsorted raw stock, not cherry-picked remainders. Most are high-gain, moderately high leakage; use them in Fuzzrites and the FZ-1a.
PRICE:    
$2.25

Quantity
Type

  Shipping Wt. 0.05 oz
E-mail a friend about this item.
Return to Catalog

[closetmonster.]

I see this kind of stuff on eBay all the time. For someone starting out building pedals it can be fairly confusing, when there is such a large variety of parts out there.

Don't pay 5 times the price for "mojo".

[smallbearelec]

Why are your 2SB** transistors not marked PNP or NPN?  Or am I missing that information? 

2SA and 2SB are all PNP. Though it is true, not everyone will necessarily know this.

SD

[R.G.]

I am well aware of the things you are saying, I just wanted to know if anyone who has had a lot of experience with real vintage AC128's had any opinions about the ones in this auction.  If I decided to try these, I would want to know if they are in truth vintage AC128's and not fakes, and I would also ask the seller what range of gains his batches test at.

I certainly haven't had the experience that some commercial sellers have had, but I did go through about 2000 AC128s of several brands back when I was developing the testing procedure. So whether that counts or not, you'll have to decide.

The upshot of a lot of that was the following:
- a type number like "AC128" exists only as a datasheet; this is deliberate, so manufacturers can compete for the business
- the data on the datasheet is only minimally useful in picking parts for pedals; gain and leakage are not tightly enough specified, and the "sounds like [insert guitar god here]" field is always empty
- the measured variation between parts of the same type number overlaps with the measured variation of other type numbers
- real, no-fooling Fuzz Faces (and probably other pedals) using real, vintage AC128s, NKT275s, etc. were sorted through to find good sounding ones.

From this I concluded that the type number and manufacturer information we can get today means almost nothing except as a pre-sorting value; that is, the type number, manufacturer, and manufacture date are only useful for buying batches to be sorted.

My experience with germaniums back before the entire world was looking for Fuzz Face germaniums (that is, before all of them were already picked through) was that one in three was OK for Fuzz Face use. Well, the NKT275s I found were one in two, and the 2N520s were 100% useful, but they were military surplus and probably already pre-sorted for the military.

IMHO, type number is only a starting point, and the vintage-ness, manufacturer and other issues are essentially useless. Well, there was one thing. The older the device was, the more likely it was to be noisy and hissy.

So use that for what you will. I quit using germanium after a while.

[~arph]

http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Categories?category=Germanium+Transistors%3ABulk+%22Rough-Sorted%22+Lots

Holy crap! your site has updated! somehow I totally missed it until now. Looks very good!!! (much better than the old one  )

On goes the thread...