So I was pretty set on trying out a BC109 in my wah, but I had to order some stuff from Mouser, so I thought I'd try a BC550B on a whim.
Short story, holy crap, am I glad I tried it out! When I swapped my standard inductor out for the red fasel, I was kind of disappointed; swapping out the MPSA18 to the BC550B made a HUGE difference! I highly recommend this mod to anyone who is looking to swap transistors.
Word of warning though, the pinout on the BC550B is EBC, while the MPSA18 is CBE.
What are the hfe readings on the BC550B that you have in Q1 and Q2?
I only swapped out Q1, and the HFE was around 450, iirc.
I swapped out my trannies recently too and it made a very noticeable difference. Really brought the red and yellow fasels to life. I went with BC190C's.
The stock trannies are rather 'meh'. I want to pick up another stock unit from eBay just to compare them now to see how big the difference is.
Cool, I'm glad it worked out for u.