Extremely high beta is generally a characteristic of low noise transistors (and low Rbb). It is not necessary for long tail pairs but won't hurt.ungifted said:LM394 usually has higher hFE (300-700, with Ic=1mA)
LS313 offers 400-1000 with Ic=10uA
Usually Linear produce very good semiconductors.
BTW is it really important for diffamp to use high hFE transistor pair similar to LM394? In other words can we use something with lower hfe in preamps similar to SSL9k?
JR
ps: caveat I did not look at SSL9k so speaking in general.