Big Monk
Well-known member
There you go, you answered your own question. Sometimes a leaky transistor needs to be used in order to bias the transistor correctly in the circuit so the transistor "turns on" and conducts in order to pass signal. MK2 is an example of this. Cathode-base resistors can be used but I feel it's a "cheat" and a deviation of the original circuit.
It doesn’t take much though. Like I said, 15 microamps is all it takes to get a no-bias Q1 like the MK II to work.