Hfe recommendations for rangemaster

[Mann]

I'm about to buy some ge-transistors (different hfe's and low leakage) and wuold like to hear some recommendations/opinions about hfe for rangemaster.

[Dragonfly]

...to me, the best "range" is in the 55-85hfe range, though you can certainly get a good sounding effect with a higher hfe germ....

[zjokka]

yeah, apparently RM needs lower gain than a fuzz face Q1. Yesterday I breadboarded a NPN Rangemaster with piggybacked BC-transistors for lower gain (hFE 70-75) and biased the collector for 7V, which required me to sub the 68k for a 55k.

It sounds great.

Piggybacking means running 2 trannies in parallel to get lower gain. Bases connected, Collector on the extra TR unconnected and emitter of extra TR connected through a 3k-6k resistors gives you any gain you want.

take care
zj

[alderbody]

Last night i ran some tests with Ge NPN's for my latest rangemaster build, and settled for a 82 Hfe.

I also did the Ge diode trick to compensate for thermal variations and it worked fine.
On the contrary, this didn't happen when i tried it with my other PNP Ge (OC44) rangemaster...

[yeeshkul]

I built mine with 75Hfe Matsuschita, and 55k base-ground resistor to get Vc bias 7V. It sounds great. When the pot is fully "on" I am getting exactly the volume and drive difference for to play lead (i play blues). I am even thinking about replacing the pot with 10k resistor to make it even simplier