"The Lost 2SB737" Found

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JR.
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"The Lost 2SB737" Found

Post by JR. »

Stop press... I just found my long missing bag of 2sb737s.... :D :D It was hiding stuffed into an empty drawer compartment of a parts bin.

Thats the good news, but the bad news is I was looking for microphones to build more drum tuners with. I bought a thousand mics years ago and should have 100-200 left.

I am finding more stuff to throw away... I found some small format floppy disks but no longer have a computer that even runs them... I found a spare printer ribbon for my old decwriter printer that I threw away years ago...

I need to find those mics and can't wait another few years this time around.

JR
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JR.
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Re: breaking news....

Post by JR. »

I can't wait years to fill my back order... my first generation drum tuner used two mics each. I have some old first gen tuner boards laying around (I'm a packrat) so I can salvage mics from them.

That should hold me until I can find the hundred+ I know I have... Just like I knew I still had the 737s. :lol:

JR
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mediatechnology
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Re: "The Lost 2SB737" Found

Post by mediatechnology »

JR has graciously sent me his "lost stash" of NOS 1980s-era 2SB737s.

The story behind the "lost" 2SB737:
"Back in the 70s I had an interest in low noise design (I was doing some consulting for Loft Modular Devices a studio effects/console company better known for their Loft 440 delay line/Flanger). I saw the 2SB737/2SD786 low noise complementary pair written up in an IEEE journal article. Perhaps odd that a college drop out like me was reading the IEEE journals but I got Rudy Bozak (the Rudy Bozak from the speaker company of the same name) to sponsor my IEEE membership while I was consulting for him.

Back to the low noise devices, I contacted ROHM who was representing them in the US… IIRC they were developed by a small Japanese company for MC head amps and ROHM ended up buying that small Japanese company. Because the PNP was slightly lower noise than the NPN, I used the PNP in all my designs (before Peavey). The “S” in 2SB737-S stands for a graded high beta (hfe) part, good for low noise applications.

Back in the early 80s I recall reading an article in Studio Sound written by some big dog UK console designer declaring that transistors that quiet were impossible or unlikely to ever be made. I popped a few in the mail to him to blow his mind (it worked). :-)

Later in the mid 80s’ when I went to work for Peavey, they already had the NPN complement (2SD786) in their system so I just used that for my low noise applications while designing inside Peavey. The small difference between PNP and NPN did not justify me bringing in another similar part.

I first used these inside mic preamps for use in Loft Consoles. Almost as a "by the way," when I published my P-10 phono preamp kit, I offered a MC version using these devices. The P-10 topology involved a flat gain stage front end before an active RIAA EQ stage. It was simple to swap in a higher gain, low Z gain stage for the MC and use JFET devices at lower gain for MM. I got a rave from Peter Aczel publisher of the Audio Critic (an audiophool rag), when a friend of mine shared my P-10 MC preamp with him. I ended up trading him a preamp for a nice pair of two-way time aligned loud speakers "Fourier" that my friend designed and Aczel was promoting.

The proliferation of serviceable IC mic preamps around the turn of the century (that did not suck), made these low noise discrete bipolar devices less attractive to large scale audio manufacturers. ROHM ended up obsoleting them.

Fast forward to this century I had what was left over from a large purchase back during my kit business/console consulting days stashed in my back lab. For some extra drama I misplaced this stash and couldn’t put my hands of them for almost 10 years. Last week while looking for some missing microphones to build more drum tuners I found my long missing stash of 2SB737s devices wedged into the back of an empty parts bin compartment (I still haven’t found those mics).

I shared low noise devices with Wayne so they can be put to better use than sitting in my back lab.

JR
And now the "lost" 2SB737s are available to all of you. https://ka-electronics.com/shop/index.p ... uct_id=108
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