Any active device will have both voltage and current noise; in modern small-signal BJTs at a mA or so of collector current this is dominated by base shot noise. Shot noise is proportional to the square root of current, and for a given collector current the base current is inversely proportional to hFE. Because of this all things being equal a low-hFE device will always have more current noise than a high-hFE one.
burdij said:
While I agree that there is a substantial difference in current gain, I only said that the That part was good enough. When you are in the desert with no bottled water available, you certainly will drink from a puddle to survive. [...]
The suggestions being made here are in answer to a question about suitable substitutes in existing applications. I think this part should be given a fair trial for that reason. It may not work. Certainly, it is worth $7 to find out.
I've bought a dozen about two years ago; tested them in a few LF amps and found them reasonably well matched but noisy.
We've discussed these parts a few times in the past, but much of that was deleted when Wayne and Roger left. Searching for "that 300" gives 40+ pages of hits, and sifting through that to get to relevant posts gets very old very fast. (I've always found THAT a very unfortunate company name when searching for information).
The MAT02/LM394 offer low noise
and good matching. For VCAs, logging amps, multipliers and the like you need the matching, so there the THAT parts or the LIS ones may make sense. In audio you seldom care about a mV or two of offset, but noise does matter. For that purpose a pair of low-noise TO-92s would be more appropriate, IMHO.