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The germanium transistor era was long over in the west when the Berlin wall came down.

Nowadays, new old stock Russian germanium transistors are appearing on world markets.

Some musicians prefer germanium transistors due to their more gradual characteristics for applications like fuzz boxes.

Did the Russians persist with germanium for longer than the west? Is there anything different about the Russian devices that would make them better?

JRE
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Autistic
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    "make them better": Impossible to answer without defining your measure of "good"! – Marcus Müller Dec 02 '19 at 21:24
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    I bought out the entire germanium BJT stock at a business in Alabama, when I discovered they were dumping old inventory a few years ago. Not because I intend on using them. But because they are historical and I like to have samples to show, at times. I think businesses in the US very rapidly dumped their germanium inventory. At the time, silicon out-performed in almost every case (except for a few such as in some AM detectors) and there was little reason to let dust collect on otherwise useful shelving. Perhaps silicon wasn't as available in Russia for a longer period? – jonk Dec 02 '19 at 21:29
  • @ Marcus Muller ..I thought good could be better linearity ,gain ,noise etc but I also thought that maybe the distortion would be more pleasing for some effects music – Autistic Dec 02 '19 at 21:54
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    @Autistic well, if you like the aesthetics of kyrillic lettering, then go for the Russian ones! On a serious note: without you defining exactly what you mean with "better", nobody can answer this. – Marcus Müller Dec 02 '19 at 21:59
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    Define what you mean by "better" and you can build a similar part out of more modern (and thus readily available) technology. Without knowing what better means though you can't do much. – user1850479 Dec 02 '19 at 23:13
  • @user1850479 .Are the Russian NOS Ge transistors any better than western ones like AC128 etc .Is there anything special about the Russian ones ? – Autistic Dec 02 '19 at 23:16
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    Soviet economy was always military first and everyone else gets the scraps and surplus. Compared to the west there would be far fewer "consumer grade" products, so in that case it can be considered "better" in that most of the devices would be spec'd more in line for that use, but apples to apples the production quality control was inconsistent at best and NoS stuff out of Russia today from Soviet era likely sat in less than consistent storage conditions and has no chain of custody so its value is limited outside of hobby hackers unless you are willing to inspect and bin them. – crasic Dec 03 '19 at 01:05
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    Please note that germanium will self-dope due to cosmic rays if stored exposed to the outside :) – crasic Dec 03 '19 at 01:19
  • @Autistic you really need to find a metric that you care about. Asking whether something is "better in any way" is meaningless: You can always come up with something, as I tried to illustrate with the kyrillic lettering: If you think that's important, then these soviet transistors are definitely better. We can't know what properties are good to you, so this is impossible to answer. – Marcus Müller Dec 03 '19 at 07:30

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