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General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc. |
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19th Jul 2017, 2:55 pm | #1 |
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Quick Comments on Books
I am looking at the following for possible purchase in order to use as reference:-
Hood: "Valve and Transistor Audio Amplifiers" Emmerson: "Electronic Classics: Collecting, Restoring and Repair" Miller: "Valve Radio and Audio Repair Handbook Comments on their usefulness from beginner to advanced? Any specific experiences with them? Maybe the authors themselves are members or have contributed to this community? Hope I've posted appropriately, and in the right place. --- Mike |
20th Jul 2017, 1:42 am | #2 |
Nonode
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Re: Quick Comments on Books
The Linsley Hood book “Valve & Transistor Audio Amplifiers” of 1997 providers a good general background including a reasonable chronology of the major valve- and transistor-era developments. I’d describe it as being mid-level, clearly below that represented by Self’s “Audio Amplifier Design Handbook”, but above entry-level. Linsley Hood’s writing style is clear, although perhaps not quite at the Baxandall level. So I’d recommend it, unless perhaps you’re a professional already working at a higher level.
To put that into perspective, I should declare that my interest is purely a leisure one, driven by a desire to know why things were done the way they were, and definitely not to be able to design, make or repair items. Also, back in the days when I had disposable, I was inclined to acquire multiple references on a topic; a book that had just one chapter on a topic or item not already covered elsewhere was often fair game. So, my purchase-justification threshold back then was not all that high. What that Linsley Hood book particularly did for me was connect a lot of sub-topics that I had previously read about individually (e.g. Lin Q-C, Quad triples, Baxandall diodes), and so enabled me to hang them on a timeline and correlate, making much easier further study via other publications. It’s a pity that Baxandall never wrote a book about amplifiers. However, the chapters he contributed to some of the more massive reference books are well worth reading. I hope that helps. Cheers, |
20th Jul 2017, 7:40 am | #3 |
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Re: Quick Comments on Books
Linsley-Hood wrote a good general overview. Over the years he published a large number of designs which were on the whole quite good. His understanding of noise in feedback circuits and noise versus effective source impedance were wrong, but the resulting difference in circuit performance would be small, probably not noticeable. John Linsley-Hood was prolific, Peter Baxendall operated as a theoretician on a much higher level, and produced good practical designs with some subtle advantages.
Doug Self came along a bit later. He worked for a manufacturer of mixing desks and multitrack tape recorders. This gave him a lot of experience in terms of design techniques at audio, yet left him free to write on domestic applications without a conflict of interests. He's gone into all sorts of aspects of audio circuit design in thorough detail. His books make great reading if your own technical level is enough to follow them. As far as writing style is concerned, he is exasperated by all of the fashionable boutique pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo and the accompanying products of the modern hifi world. You could consider him the audio field's parallel to Richard Dawkins, though in Self's field, he has theoretical analysis and measured results to back him. I think there was a book done of a collection of audio articles from Wireless World, but I suspect it may be hard to find. It won't be complete, either. You could use the internet to trawl through all the issues of WW from the beginning to its end, reading the audio articles. Self has selected some and put them on his website, but perhaps you'd like to experience the full set rather than someone else's idea of what is interesting? There's an American website collecting electronics periodicals and I can never remember its URL. David
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20th Jul 2017, 8:15 am | #4 |
Dekatron
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Re: Quick Comments on Books
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/
It has complete scans of every Wireless World (1911 onwards) and Practical Wireless (1932 onwards) ever produced. Actually, just looking, and there are just a tiny few missing. It is a superb resource. Self's books are indeed excellent. His book on power amplifiers is based on his "blameless" principle; he covers all distortion mechanisms and arrives at a design procedure which minimises each of them. So the amplifier is in itself blameless. And we're talking 0.0006% (6ppm) distortion, with a reasonable level of design complexity. His designs have the characteristic rise of distortion with frequency, and with load current. More advanced designs, which go to the next level of blamelessness, have appeared in Linear Audio (by Stoichino on a feedback/feedforward design) and a complete tome called "Audio Power Amplifiers - towards inherently linear amplifiers" by Arto Kulinummi. But neither of these remotely approximate to light reading. However they demonstrate that you can get down to a THD of 2ppm across the audio bandwidth, so no rise with frequency or with power level. But the complexity is an order of magnitude greater than Self's. Craig |
20th Jul 2017, 9:05 am | #5 | |
Nonode
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Re: Quick Comments on Books
Quote:
Cheers, |
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20th Jul 2017, 9:36 am | #6 |
Octode
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Re: Quick Comments on Books
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20th Jul 2017, 11:33 am | #7 |
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Re: Quick Comments on Books
Aha!
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20th Jul 2017, 10:15 pm | #8 |
Octode
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Re: Quick Comments on Books
While you're searching for modern books, don't disregard the contemporary literature, some is very good and can be had for pennies. Hopefully you can see some of the titles to give you an idea. There are plenty of posts on this forum suggesting books which is how I ended up with these.
My favourite wireless set theory/servicing title is actually American, Elements of Radio Servicing by Marcus and Levy. Andrew
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21st Jul 2017, 10:44 am | #9 | |
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Re: Quick Comments on Books
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