To many people, the thermionic valve or electron tube is history. However, whether it is nostalgia, interest in the technical parameters, the appeal of a gleaming amplifier chassis with softly glowing valves, respect for the technical know-how of an earlier generation, or perhaps the firm conviction that the sound of a valve cannot be bettered, it is a fact that the valve is making a come-back. The book contains, apart from construction projects for preamplifiers, power amplifiers, and two amplifiers for musical instruments, information on the operation of electron tubes, while the first chapter gives a short history of the valve.
Explains the whys and wherefores of toroidal output transformers at various technical levels, starting with elementary concepts and culminating in complete mathematical descriptions. In all of this, the interactions of the output valves, transformer and loudspeaker form the central theme. Next come the practical aspects. The schematic diagram of a valve amplifier often appears to be very simple at first glance, but anyone who has built a modern valve amplifier knows that a lot of critical details are hidden behind the apparent simplicity. These are discussed extensively, in connection with designs for amplifiers without output powers ranging from 10 to 100 watts. Finally, the author gives some attention to a number of special valve amplifiers, and to the theory and practice of negative feedback.
How does speech, music, or, indeed, any sound get from the record, the CD or the cassette tape to the loudspeaker? This is a question that many people keep on asking and to which this book endeavours to give a comprehensible answer. Understanding the background of the process is a first requirement, which is why the author in the description of single components makes clear what exactly happens in the component. An understanding is also engendered of phenomena such as noise, hum, distortion, and others, as well as standards such as the decibel and the RIAA characteristic. Designing circuits is practically impossible without an understanding of the various networks involved in the conversion of the input sound to the sound emanating from a loudspeaker. To this end, the author describes four important basic circuits using an operational amplifier, a component without which modern audio circuits can no longer be imagined. Variants of these four circuits return in many of the other circuits contained in this book. Building circuits, including ancillary and special ones, form the practical parts of this book. These circuits can be applied in audio equipment as well as with certain musical instruments. There are preamplifiers, filters, output stages, power supplies, compandors, mixer panels, level meters, bandwidth limiters, headphone amplifiers, playback stages, as well as tips on construction and faultfinding.
Designing Power Supplies for Valve Amplifiers is a unique guide to the operation and practical design of linear power supplies, especially for valve equipment. Audiophiles, guitarists and general hobbyists alike will find this book an invaluable source of detailed information on transformers, rectifiers, smoothing, high-voltage series and shunt regulators, and much more. Although this book is not intended for the beginner, learning is encouraged through practical design, and concepts are introduced at a basic level before the reader is accelerated to the stage of high-performance design, with over 200 circuit diagrams and figures. Numerous practical circuits are included, for high-voltage stabilisers, heater regulators, optimised bias circuits, high-voltage supplies using 'junk box' parts, and even audio power control for guitar amplifiers. An essential handbook for any valve amplifier enthusiast!
(Book). Explores all manufacturers and de-mystifys the inner workings of tube amps. All new material from the amp guru Gerald Weber. Tons of empirical data that de-mystify the inner workings of tube amps to help you get the most from your amps! You will learn how tube amps work, electronic concepts, how different types of tubes work, the anatomy of a gain stage, how to resurrect a dormant tube amp, how to do a cap job correctly, modifications to preserve your amp, how to voice an amp and tune the reverb, how to build an amp, recover a cabinet, re-grill a baffleboard, how to buy a vintage amp; and common wiring mistakes and idiosyncrasies found in vintage amps. And you get a couple of hundred pages of Questions and Answers sectioned off into Fender, Gibson, Marshall, Danelectro/Silvertone, Vox, Other American, Other British and Miscellaneous Topics. You will learn the six dreaded tone killers and how to avoid them, the top ten amp-tone tips, and how to fine-tune your entire amp setup. In short, you will have the knowledge needed to squeeze your amp's performance from lame to insane.
Amplifiers equipped entirely with tubes require a great deal of circuitry and mechanical effort. A conceptually and technically interesting compromise is the combination of a tube preamplifier with a transistorized or integrated power amplifier. This approach, which has also been implemented in quite a few commercial devices, is the focus of this book. The described tube preamplifiers can of course easily be combined with other amplifiers.
The operational amplifier ("op amp") is the most versatile and widely used type of analog IC, used in audio and voltage amplifiers, signal conditioners, signal converters, oscillators, and analog computing systems. Almost every electronic device uses at least one op amp. This book is Texas Instruments' complete professional-level tutorial and reference to operational amplifier theory and applications. Among the topics covered are basic op amp physics (including reviews of current and voltage division, Thevenin's theorem, and transistor models), idealized op amp operation and configuration, feedback theory and methods, single and dual supply operation, understanding op amp parameters, minimizing noise in op amp circuits, and practical applications such as instrumentation amplifiers, signal conditioning, oscillators, active filters, load and level conversions, and analog computing. There is also extensive coverage of circuit construction techniques, including circuit board design, grounding, input and output isolation, using decoupling capacitors, and frequency characteristics of passive components. The material in this book is applicable to all op amp ICs from all manufacturers, not just TI. Unlike textbook treatments of op amp theory that tend to focus on idealized op amp models and configuration, this title uses idealized models only when necessary to explain op amp theory. The bulk of this book is on real-world op amps and their applications; considerations such as thermal effects, circuit noise, circuit buffering, selection of appropriate op amps for a given application, and unexpected effects in passive components are all discussed in detail. *Published in conjunction with Texas Instruments *A single volume, professional-level guide to op amp theory and applications *Covers circuit board layout techniques for manufacturing op amp circuits.
Small Signal Audio Design is a highly practical handbook providing an extensive repertoire of circuits that can be assembled to make almost any type of audio system. The publication of Electronics for Vinyl has freed up space for new material, (though this book still contains a lot on moving-magnet and moving-coil electronics) and this fully revised third edition offers wholly new chapters on tape machines, guitar electronics, and variable-gain amplifiers, plus much more. A major theme is the use of inexpensive and readily available parts to obtain state-of-the-art performance for noise, distortion, crosstalk, frequency response accuracy and other parameters. Virtually every page reveals nuggets of specialized knowledge not found anywhere else. For example, you can improve the offness of a fader simply by adding a resistor in the right place- if you know the right place. Essential points of theory that bear on practical audio performance are lucidly and thoroughly explained, with the mathematics kept to an absolute minimum. Self’s background in design for manufacture ensures he keeps a wary eye on the cost of things. This book features the engaging prose style familiar to readers of his other books. You will learn why mercury-filled cables are not a good idea, the pitfalls of plating gold on copper, and what quotes from Star Trek have to do with PCB design. Learn how to: make amplifiers with apparently impossibly low noise design discrete circuitry that can handle enormous signals with vanishingly low distortion use humble low-gain transistors to make an amplifier with an input impedance of more than 50 megohms transform the performance of low-cost-opamps build active filters with very low noise and distortion make incredibly accurate volume controls make a huge variety of audio equalisers make magnetic cartridge preamplifiers that have noise so low it is limited by basic physics, by using load synthesis sum, switch, clip, compress, and route audio signals be confident that phase perception is not an issue This expanded and updated third edition contains extensive new material on optimising RIAA equalisation, electronics for ribbon microphones, summation of noise sources, defining system frequency response, loudness controls, and much more. Including all the crucial theory, but with minimal mathematics, Small Signal Audio Design is the must-have companion for anyone studying, researching, or working in audio engineering and audio electronics.
