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Rangemaster + Roto-Tone

My wife is having to burn up some vacation days before the end of the year (or she'll just lose those hours), so I'm a little busy with R&R right now. However, I wanted to mention this.

 

This is a Rangemaster board I built out with a Roto-Tone that I set up to give it four different input capacitor options.

 

As you can see, I used an AC-130 NPN germanium transistor in the Rangemaster build. This one has an hFE of 63. Something occurred to me last night, though. One of those things that just popped up in my head for no apparent reason.

 

I used an AC-130 in this because I have a thousand of 'em and in my sorting found several hundred in the hFE range that would be ideal for Rangemasters.

 

I have some more of these boards, though. What occurred to me last night was the Tesla 104NU71. I have about a hundred of those sitting around. They are an exceptionally pleasant-sounding transistor with an average hFE of 60-80. I think they may have high-frequency reproduction issues. That's my guess as to why they sound so, "warm." Which is the thing with a Rangemaster. The extreme high end needs to have that warmth for the circuit to sound its best.

 

I'm not slagging this one with the AC-130 before even trying it, but I really think I need to try some 104NU71 builds, too. Soon.

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Uploaded on October 12, 2016