anyone tried this?
2N5088s are quite rare here
BC549s have a typical hFE of 800
I've used 'em there, the bc549Cs i've got go from 500 to 650 hfe.
I never owned an original BMP, nor heard one personally, but to my ears, my bmp sounded just the same when compared to all the clips i could find.
Put sockets for the Q's and try. When you are finally get those 5088's you can swap them and compare.
I've tried them too. Will work just fine.
My first Diy proyect was BMP, i used to have one russian green box.
I just have BC549 at this moment and some years ago i see a similar design with 4xBC548 input buffer, diode clipper, diode clipper, output buffer, it looks like something we know ;)
Then i built it and the results.....Exactly the same sound and response, i try the same settings and it sounds the same too.
I don't read the hfe, i don't know if my BC's are 600 or 800, just sounds the same, i just have to reduce the input cap to .1 couse the lows make some gating effect, like a heavy and unusable compression.
Saludos, Marcelo.
I aslso used BC549 for the BMP and its ok.
I don't have an original to compare, though.
I prefered BC549B for the middle 2 transistors.