regeneration can increase the detection gain of a detector by a factor of 1,700 or more. this is quite an improvement, especially for the low-gain vacuum tubes of the 1920s and early 1930s. the type 36 screen-grid tube (obsolete since the mid-1930s) had a non-regenerative detection gain (audio frequency plate voltage divided by radio frequency input voltage) of only 9.2 at 7.2 mhz, but in a regenerative detector, had detection gain as high as 7,900 at critical regeneration (non-oscillating) and as high as 15,800 with regeneration just above critical. the "... non-oscillating regenerative amplification is limited by the stability of the circuit elements, tube [or device] characteristics and [stability of] supply voltages which determine the maximum value of regeneration obtainable without self-oscillation". intrinsically, there is little or no difference in the gain and stability available from vacuum tubes, jfets, mosfets or bipolar junction transistors (bjts).