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Crash course in electrical engineering and amp design

U

UKMattG

Member
Hi all, I'm a fairly technical person but I'm not up to speed with electricity and how the various considerations impact the sound an amp makes e.g. capacitance, inductance, opamps, amplifier windings etc.

Where's a good place to start? What reading material / website do you recommend?
 
Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill, I understand, is one of the definitive textbooks on the subject.
 
Easier than H&H is Hartley Jones “Intro to electronics” or similar, I read it back in the day and it’s very informative while keeping an easier style than H&H. It was very popular at 6th form level for people doing A level Physics and elementary electronics.
 
Yomanze said:
It is, but it's a heavy read...
Click to expand...
That will explain why I struggled to get past the first couple of chapters with any meaningful comprehension. My copy was a gift from Mr Tibbs. He seems to know a thing or three about electronics.
 
It's a vast subject and reading a few books could well lead to "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing"... got to start somewhere though...
 
Great, I'll check out the web content first then consider the book. Arkless - I get what you're saying. Having worked in IT for 15 years I see the fallout regularly. I won't be doing much with that knowledge but would check here if I undertake a wee project. Cheers.
 
Yomanze said:
It is, but it's a heavy read...
Click to expand...

Actually, for an intro to electronics in general it is rather light-hearted, unless you were referring to the mass of the paper.
So yes, recommended.

More amplifier specific: Douglas Self's The Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbook.
 
My standing recommendation to new DiY interest is John Linsley Hood ‘Valve and Transistor amplifiers.’

Outstanding clarity that starts with electronic components and takes you through to discussing how some well-known examples work, with enough circuit design in between to finish the book with some understanding. A model of clarity in technical writing for a lay audience. It’s interesting and amusing too.
 
I always seem to have a mental block when it comes to intangible subjects. If JLH is written for non-technical folks like me, then I might give it another go. Thanks for the recommendation, Martin.
 
You might have to shop around - it was published by Newnes, but typing that into a search this evening it seems copies fetch over £50 on the usual resellers, which seems a bit rich (my copy is marked 19.95.. a 2006 print.)

JL Hood also wrote 'The Art of Linear Electronics' (not to be confused with Hill&Horowitz mighty tome!) and this is a slightly fuller treatment, but came earlier: so deals more with analogue electronic design, and component-level circuits, and slightly less on the audio amp examples side.

If you find one at the right price, you are not missing much from the other.

ETA: well that'll be why: the iniquitous bastards at Elsevier now control the imprint as Newnes:
https://www.elsevier.com/books/valve-and-transistor-audio-amplifiers/hood/978-0-7506-3356-7
 
There are also quite a lot of resources here, both in the reference forum and in threads in the DIY area.

If you seriously want to get into amp design, I would suggest Horowitz and Hill followed by the Doug Self book. You don't need to read the digital chapters in H&H.

It really helps if you have the right maths background - at a minimum calculus and algebra, but if you have done complex analysis and integral transforms that helps with a deeper understanding of how everything links together.

Once you have some basics, using a simulator like LTSpice can help to get feel for how circuits act.
 
martin clark said:
You might have to shop around - it was published by Newnes, but typing that into a search this evening it seems copies fetch over £50 on the usual resellers, which seems a bit rich (my copy is marked 19.95.. a 2006 print.)

JL Hood also wrote 'The Art of Linear Electronics' (not to be confused with Hill&Horowitz mighty tome!) and this is a slightly fuller treatment, but came earlier: so deals more with analogue electronic design, and component-level circuits, and slightly less on the audio amp examples side.

If you find one at the right price, you are not missing much from the other.

ETA: well that'll be why: the iniquitous bastards at Elsevier now control the imprint as Newnes:
https://www.elsevier.com/books/valve-and-transistor-audio-amplifiers/hood/978-0-7506-3356-7
Click to expand...

In no way suggesting or condoning the use of pirated copyright material, but if you look around there are freely downloadable pdf versions of John Linsley Hood ‘Valve and Transistor amplifiers.’ that you might want to preview before purchasing from the current rights holder.
 
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