OC81 repros or NKT271A - Anyone Ever Use Them?

[frankie5fingers]

Advertised as "made by a US company to original OC81D specs".  Has anyone ever tried 'em?
Thanks

[JakeFuzz]

What is the brand name? I have heard of an Indian company called DSI making reproduction OC81's but I heard they were all super low gain. If this is a different company I would love to see if they are legit. Getting all the parameters the exact same for these diffusion junction transistors is probably very difficult these days now that all the equipment has gone to planar silicon designs though.

[frankie5fingers]

I guess I can't post the pic, but this is the description.  It's a metal can - it says OC81 onit but I can't tell if there's a suffix...

GT-OC81 (Transistor)         
price $6.56   

Germanium PNP Transistor - Built to Mullard specification by U.S. Military transistor manufacturer 
OC81 Germanium PNP Transistor
Vbr CBO : 32
hfe : 40
@ Ic (A) : 200
@ VCE (test) (V) : 1.5
Ic Max. (A) : 500m
Trans. Freq. (Hz) Mn. : 1.0M
C (ob) (F) : 40p
Icbo Max. @Vcb Max. (A) : 10u
Vbr CEO : 16
Max PD (W) : 200m
Derate (Amb) (W/ºC) : 3.3m
Oper. Temp (ºC) Max : 100
Pkg Style : TO-1
Surface Mounted : N
Pinout Equivalence # : 3-12 

[jtn191]

yep, looks like Jakefuzz was right, hfe of 40 is pretty low

[frankie5fingers]

Yeah, 40 seems awfully low, but I wrote and asked if the could put together a trio from 70-100/120.  I'll see what they say.  I also saw some, again with no name mentioned, on the GB Ebay site.  There were a few sellers with them at around 4-5 pounds per.  That site also had some Newmarket ones they refer to as NOS NKT271A/OC81-82 selling for about 4GBP - $6.25 US.
I'd love to hear anyone's experience with them - I'm buying some trannies for a Pastyface.

[JakeFuzz]

I would say if they can get you a set of tested higher gain ones it might be worth it but at that price I might just go with a matched set of smallbear's OC75s. I have them in a MKII and they sound great.

[frankie5fingers]

Yeah Paul, they didn't respond - I'll post if they do.  For $20 it's worth checking out, but I'm not counting on it.  I bought some stuff from Little Diode, an English company, in the past.  I'll see what they have also - I'll let you know if I find anything interesting.
Frank