Book recommendations, anyone?

[Paultergeist]

Greetings!

I am neither a complete novice nor a seasoned expert on the subject of tube amps, and I am trying to gain better knowledge and understanding. Many of you who participate in this forum seem to have knowledge vastly superior to mine -- I'm wondering how you learned this, and what can you recommend to someone such as myself who wants to educate himself further?

Thus far, I have read Dave Hunter's "The Guitar Amp Handbook," Dan Torres' "Inside Tube Amps," and Gerald Weber's "Tube Guitar Amplifier Essentials." All were helpful -- to some extent (although I don't think either Torres or Weber used any sort of editing process) -- but I still have gaps in my basic knowledge after reading these three books. I know there are some other books out there, but are they any good?

Any ideas or opinions - good or bad - would be sincerely appreciated.

[tomrasdf]

Hey there.
I was in the same boat as you about 6 months ago. No where near the skill/knowledge level of most of the folks who post on this forum, but I've been there and I have a suggestion. Check out old electronics books. Late 60s is the best. I'm a college student, so I went to the library and found some faded glorys form that time period and found them to answer a lot of the questions I had. Also, the RCA recieving tube handbook is great. Lots of raw tube data, but there's chapter or two in the front about the electronics of it all and some sample circuts in the back that are very inciteful. RC-30 is the one you want, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong). The Radiotron handbook is also supposed to be great (don't own it yet, it's on my Christmas list).
-TR

[mhuss]

The Jack Darr book (in print again) has a good, simple introduction to amp stages and how they work.

Inside the Vacuum Tube (Rider) has a great explanation of how tubes actually work, and explains biasing, load lines, etc.

Newer books I like include Valve Amplifiers and Building Valve Amplifers by Morgan Jones.

The Ultimate Tone series from Kevin O'Connor are good and have lots of practical circuits and examples, but suffer from KOC's idiosyncratic hand drawings (and opinions). They're also expensive for "Printed-at-Kinko's-spiral-bound" books.

Most of the 50's college texts are very good for that level (i.e., if you want college-level reading).

Many/all of the old books are available online if you're poor (or cheap) but I still prefer paper for reading anything longer than a page or two...

--mark h

[KyleJ]

Inside the Vacuum Tube - Rider - Has the best explaination of what's really going on inside. In undestandable language.

The Morgan Jones books are pretty good too.

Just got my copy of TUT (the first book). Just browsed it so far...seems to have some good stuff as well.

[gearhead]

Am still on a learning curve myself, but for a well-grounded, basic understanding, the Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series is really good. Especially the AC, Tubes, and Amplifiers modules.

Someone here turned me on to them (thanks, forgot who), but can't find the original link. They appear to be downloadable from here:

http://www.zianet.com/nmamars/downloads/neets.htm

[Paultergeist]

My heartfelt thanks to all of you who took the time to reply to my query. Mark, thanks for the link to the Jack Darr book -- I had previously looked for it but couldn't find it. Gearhead, the Navy link was quite useful -- the chapter on tubes looks especially good. Thanks to everyone else, too -- I will follow up on many on these recommendations.

Best regards!

[Dai H.]

hi, lots of links here:

http://www.firebottle.com/fireforum/fir ... garm&mode=

[Motörbööt]

Hi,

a lot of books you can download :

http://www.pmillett.com/technical_books_online.htm

Greetz M
.

[David Root]

Dave Funk's Fender Tube Amp Workbook, Vol. 1, Fender is also useful. Too bad he never did volumes 2, 3, etc.

[KT66]

Thanks for that cool link Motorboot. I think Weber's other books, Hip Vintage reference and Tube Amp Talk are worth reading, after you know enough you'll know how to filter out the B.S. in his writing. Here's some websites that helped me:

http://tone-lizard.com/ - Controversial to some, a must read

http://hoffmanamps.com/ - CHeck out the Library and the forum;
Doug's a cool guy & ships fast!

http://aikenamps.com/ - Lots of great tech info

http://www.blueguitar.org/ - tons of schematics and mod ideas

http://paulrubyamps.com/

http://mhuss.com/ - I referenced Mark's site alot when I built my first Plexi. Lucky for us I see that he is a member of this forum, Thanks Mark! I love your DR103 clone, ultra cool!

Also, I think that the most knowledgable amp builders on the web can be found in the Dumble forum on this site, even if you don't want to tackle an ODS It's definately worth reading what they have to say.

[drz400]

Greetings!

I am neither a complete novice nor a seasoned expert on the subject of tube amps, and I am trying to gain better knowledge and understanding. Many of you who participate in this forum seem to have knowledge vastly superior to mine -- I'm wondering how you learned this, and what can you recommend to someone such as myself who wants to educate himself further?

Thus far, I have read Dave Hunter's "The Guitar Amp Handbook," Dan Torres' "Inside Tube Amps," and Gerald Weber's "Tube Guitar Amplifier Essentials." All were helpful -- to some extent (although I don't think either Torres or Weber used any sort of editing process) -- but I still have gaps in my basic knowledge after reading these three books. I know there are some other books out there, but are they any good?

Any ideas or opinions - good or bad - would be sincerely appreciated.

www.londonpower.com
all good books to read, 99% of the information is very correct.
That, Randall Aikens tech page and The Radiotron Designers Handbook once you get an understanding