I have just finished reading "Tubes and Circuits" by Bruce Rozenblit and have found it a totally brilliant book.
I have always tried to steer clear of AC theory stuff which is a bit daft as valve amps don't work without it.
Rozenblit has a no-nonsense style which makes it very easy to learn and digest even complex concepts, without a great deal of pain. You still need to think hard but he makes it pleasureable to learn the stuff.
Jeez, I even enjoyed phasor diagrams and the trigonometry needed to work them out. When you know why you need this knowledge and how to use it properly to design circuits, it makes the job far less frustrating.
One of the best quotes in the book is quite simple,
"Every time one desired parameter is optimized, another is degraded. It all boils down to finding the best set of compromises that provide the best result"
That's why I have had to build so many bloody amplifiers. If as a scratch-builder, you fail to understand the implications of that simple bit of info, you will chase your tail forever like I was perilously close to doing. To be able to choose those compromises, you need to know what you are doing and why. This little volume gives you the confidence that comes with that knowledge..
You never know, I might now be able to design and build amps for the pleasure of the sound they give rather than design amp after amp, with an increasing sense of desperation.
Nuff said, and at £19 from Amazon it is a no brainer.
Phasors on Stun!
- Cressy Snr
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#1 Phasors on Stun!
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- Mike H
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#2
Good quote that.
I was just redoing one of my old web pages about valve theory (came from off a photocopy of stuff that I seem to have lost now) and noticed the sentence "triodes are non-linear"
In terms of, when you look at the Ia vs Va vs Vg graph, nothing is straight.
So, yeah.
I was just redoing one of my old web pages about valve theory (came from off a photocopy of stuff that I seem to have lost now) and noticed the sentence "triodes are non-linear"
In terms of, when you look at the Ia vs Va vs Vg graph, nothing is straight.
So, yeah.
"No matter how fast light travels it finds that the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."