Replacements for BC184C transistor?

[Whoops]

you could build a jig which represents the circuit in which the transistor is used,

Someone told one time "for Neve first stage transistor you need to select the BC184C for higher than 600 hfe" (no base current or voltage was specified) then somehow that spread around and now people think that you need to have BC184C transistors with hfe higher than 600 (again no base current specified) when Neve never selected BC184C transistors for gain.
Neve just used the transistors straight from the shelf, from the factory or from the local shop.

 

[r2d2]

Someone told one time "for Neve first stage transistor you need to select the BC184C for higher than 600 hfe" (no base current or voltage was specified) then somehow that spread around and now people think that you need to have BC184C transistors with hfe higher than 600 (again no base current specified) when Neve never selected BC184C transistors for gain.
Neve just used the transistors straight from the shelf, from the factory or from the local shop.

.....or from the local shop.
.as"Geoff T. " said 

 

[API]

I did de-solder some first stage transistors from vintage BA283 cards and they do vary in hfe, but most are on the higher side.
But will do a larger selection and write here what the hfe range were when i have more time.

I did however have a card that had lower headroom than normal in my testjig and there the transistor (a BC114 that was original to the card) had a hfe of only 200.
I changed that for a BC184C that had a hfe of about 500 and everything went back to normal, so it does matter what you put in there.

 

[Whoops]

I did de-solder some first stage transistors from vintage BA283 cards and they do vary in hfe, but most are on the higher side.
But will do a larger selection and write here what the hfe range were when i have more time.

I did however have a card that had lower headroom than normal in my testjig and there the transistor (a BC114 that was original to the card) had a hfe of only 200.
I changed that for a BC184C that had a hfe of about 500 and everything went back to normal, so it does matter what you put in there.

Yes it matters what transistors you choose.

I just said that it's not true that you need a BC184C transistor with hfe higher than 600 in the first position of each stage.
That's pure internet myth. Neve never selected transistors with hfe above 600.

In the last years with the discontinuity of production of BC184C transistors I've seen people refusing to buy those transistors if hfe under 600, following the myth! That doenst make any sense.

Well at least I can buy those for me, so their loss our gain

 

[API]

I can only agree with you, but it does matter how high the HFE is, that was my point.

For fun i desoldered about 10 different transistors from BA183 and BA283 cards today and measured the HFE.
They were all the first one in the path and i took some from both amps on the cards.

They were also a mix of BC109, BC114, BC184L and BC184C (sometimes Neve mixed types on the same cards but mostly they usually are the same).
Also worth noting is that on almost all the earlier BA183 cards the first transistor is a BC109 with the rest being BC107.

So, what did i find?
Of the ten i tried they were all in the 430-500 hfe range with the BC184L and BC184C being on the higher end of the scale.

This is by no means a conclusive test, but will give you a basic idea of what was used on real Neve cards.

 

[Whoops]

Yes, I did the same thing some months ago.

I had 6 Neve cards, a mix of BA183 and BA283.

Transistors were BC107, BC107A, BC107B, BC109C or BC184C

I removed all the transistors from the first stages in each card (2 for card)
From the 12 transistors only 2 had HFE above 600.

Most were in the 450 to 550 range