However, if you don't need lots of gain a decent preamp can be built around the venerable 2N7000. Yes, that's a MOSFET, definitely not aimed at audio, but it's dirt cheap, available everywhere ...and noisy. But if you keep the gain to reasonable levels it works quite well.
Here's some info.
http://www.muzique.com/schem/mosfet.htm
(the entire site is worth bookmarking)
Also some say some quirks of analog designs are hard to replicate in simulation althought I haven't seen double blind tests of that so I'm mildly skeptical of that
Clever!
He mentions electrostatic discharge sensitivity. Yes. It's very easy to blow out the gate of an FET just by touching the gate lead. Once it's attached to a driver transistor, it's protected, but loose FETs need to be stored in conductive foam and handled while wearing a wrist strap.
FETs are really amazing. ON resistances in the milli-ohm range, and OFF resistances in the megohm range. It's surprising that's physically possible.
Unfortunately, we often rely on trusting secretive vendors with insulation specs, trusting assemblers with following instructions and not damaging hard to inspect wiring and insulation, and trusting brand and certification markings on the product since you can't open it without destroying it.
https://hackaday.com/2023/05/02/fet-fun-endeavors-together/#...
