The Bear of a Search

[gyulasun]

@jadaro

The correct term to search for is  ' low saturation transistor '

Zetex has been known as among the best, now they captured by Diodes Inc.  here is their link and enter the above key words:
http://www.diodes.com/search/index.php

You can find several other manufacturers with low saturation types:

http://www.sanyocomponentsdirect.com/Bipolar-Transistors/Bipolar-Transistors/Low-Saturation

http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/parametrics.do?id=808 

All these are bipolar Si transistors, with high Beta (h_FE) (NOT Darlington), their base-emitter forward voltage is .7 - .8V.
Some of them seems to have better saturation voltage than a Germanium type, see here for instance, at I_c=100mA the sat voltage V_CEsat=30mV,  this is the voltage drop between the collector-emitter:
http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/NSS1C201L.PDF

You may find them also by searching within bigger sellers pages like Future Electronics, Farnell, Digikey etc.

rgds,  Gyula

[jadaro2600]

Ah, thank you gyulasun, having the correct terminology search helps.

Hopefully I'll acquire some of these transistors and do some testing, but I think I can do without them for now.  These will be for third of fourth stage of development, or there abouts.

I purchased so many components about a half a year, I may have one or two and not know it.  I'm pretty sure I would have skipped buying a 10 or 12 dollar component.