Does mis-biasing shorten germanium life?

[saros141]

I know that if you bias a tube wrong, it can burn out quicker... does the same thing apply to transistors (especially Germanium)?

Reason I'm asking is, I'm trying to decide whether or not to use just a pot (which could be dialed right down to zero), or a smaller-value pot with a series resistor.  If there's any risk of damage from grossly mis-biasing, I'll go with the second.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Suppose (for example) you had a variable resistor from the base to the power rail that the collector goes to (via a resistor), then yes, you can burn it out in a flash.

[saros141]

Thanks Paul,

Actually, this would go between the base and (+)ground on a Rangemaster, I found a very nicely made Waters miniature wirewound 100k pot.  My feeling is that turning this down to zero would shunt the input signal to ground (like a grid-to-ground master volume on a tube amp), so there would be little danger of damage.  The idea would be to find a bias setting on-the-fly, to suit the ambient temperature and for a little tonal variation.  Practically speaking though, the range in which it would sound good would be fairly tight, so it might be best saved for another project.

Has anyone had good success replacing the emitter resistor with a pot to finely tune bias?