ac128

[funkyhair143]

Alright does anyone know where to buy a couple of Germanium AC128s? Is there anything equivalent to that thats more abundant? And would a AC188 work in a "fuzz pedal" circut? Thanks guys:D

[tomrulez]

get Ac128's from here:

http://markhindes.easywebstore.co.uk/searchresults.aspx?searchterm=ac128

 

I think he is out of stock at the moment, they would work in a home made "fuzz pedal".

 

 

I saw your sneaky edit

[funkyhair143]

hehe woops fuzz pedal then

and i just found this on mouser http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=JV7lzlMm3yKR3liu%2fAHJeA%3d%3d not sure if that would work or not? Its a NTE158??? any ideas?

[tomrulez]

Well all the best fuzz sound's come from germanium transistor's, all I know is to stick with what sounds best.

[funkyhair143]

alright one last question then ill stop anoying you :]

http://markhindes.easywebstore.co.uk/contentitempage.aspx?contentid=104400 those are ac128s right? im just not sure cause you said they were out of stock and those are in.

[tomrulez]

Yeah they will do fine, the ones at the top of the page I posted were out of stock and I didn't look down the page, my bad. Those ones will be perfect though, remember to get a couple as none of them have the same sound so mix and match them until you get the sound you like.

[Grinning Death]

I doubt anyone really experimented with any other p-n junction grp 3, 4 5 etc... semi conductors.

 

Just the usual sheepy guitarists following whatever their particular champ used.

[funkyhair143]

Id experiment if I had more money and new more about elctronics, all I really know right now is how to read the schematics but I dont really know like why the parts are that way or how they make the sounds they make. hell that'd be fun to just play around and find some new sound out of the blue by just messing around with the components

[the_man361]

i think i played with some 2N3904 transistors, iirc.

[Citizen_2]

Going off on a slight tangent, am I the only one who finds it a bit funny that the "New Old Stock" germanium transistors used in Fuzz Factories have "Zvex" printed on them?

 

It's almost like Zach Vex travelled back in time to the 60's, ordered some components with his name custom-printed on the cans, and then jumped back to the year 2000, just in time to design them into a boutique fuzz pedal.

[Neil.]

im going for those replacements on mouser personally.

[tomrulez]

Going off on a slight tangent, am I the only one who finds it a bit funny that the "New Old Stock" germanium transistors used in Fuzz Factories have "Zvex" printed on them?

 

It's almost like Zach Vex travelled back in time to the 60's, ordered some components with his name custom-printed on the cans, and then jumped back to the year 2000, just in time to design them into a boutique fuzz pedal.

 

That's one of the effects on the new ZVEX Time Bender Pedal, custom built for esparoba1. It allows the user to go back in time to learn muse songs before they are even written.

[Citizen_2]

im going for those replacements on mouser personally.

 

According to the Mouser datasheet, those 158's have much lower gain than the AC128's used in the FF. Typical is quoted as 90 with a min of 60 and max of 175. Zvex reputedly uses components with gain in excess of 250. Whether this is accurate or not I can't say and I don't fancy unsoldering any of mine to measure 'em.

 

The NTE components will almost certainly produce an output, but whether it'll sound "like an FF" will be interesting to see/hear. This is in part because no two FF's seem to sound exactly the same anyway, something that must be down to gain variations in the germanium transistors, as everything else on the board should be pretty consistent from unit to unit.

[tomrulez]

According to the Mouser datasheet, those 158's have much lower gain than the AC128's used in the FF. Typical is quoted as 90 with a min of 60 and max of 175. Zvex reputedly uses components with gain in excess of 250. Whether this is accurate or not I can't say and I don't fancy unsoldering any of mine to measure 'em.

 

The NTE components will almost certainly produce an output, but whether it'll sound "like an FF" will be interesting to see/hear - in part because no two FF's seem to sound exactly the same anyway.

 

I think the reason no two FF's sound the same is because no two germanium transistor's sound the same, that's why people swear by them as germanium's add character to the pedal.

[Jackplug]

Well all the best fuzz sound's come from germanium transistor's, all I know is to stick with what sounds best.

 

I prefer silicon.

[funkyhair143]

I really like the sound of Germanium fuzz boxes/distortion. I have a BOSS DS-1, I know thats not very good to begin with, but it sounds almost lifeless compaired to a old germanium based fuzz where they add some character to the sound.

[Neil.]

hey, sorry to bump this.

 

I'm back looking for some sort of an alternative to this. I'm building a fuzz, and ordering parts from mouser.com , however, they dont stock AC128's. They have a cross reference match, NTE158, but someone said before that it wont be near as good. Can anyone suggest a decent alternative (or several) that might be on mouser.com. thanks.

[teej212]

they sell a128s on ebay, just check it out

 

nice prices too

[haze015]

Well all the best fuzz sound's come from germanium transistor's, all I know is to stick with what sounds best.

 

 

I really like the sound of Germanium fuzz boxes/distortion. I have a BOSS DS-1, I know thats not very good to begin with, but it sounds almost lifeless compaired to a old germanium based fuzz where they add some character to the sound.

 

try swapping the diodes for leds for starters, makes a massive difference to the DS1

[gillianreynolds]

Looking for some pairs or AC128, or SFT363E PNP Germanium transistors for a couple of Arbiter Fuzz Face builds.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

 

 

 

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Thanks

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[Neil.]