'The art of electronics' is a worthless piece of garbage! !!

Thread Starter

imbaine13

Joined Oct 6, 2013
67
Don't like "The Art of..." ?

Perhaps that's because you got the wrong one?

One of the great pioneers of audio circuits in general and amplifiers in particular has written two of interest

The Art of Linear Electronics

&

Audio Electronics

Not only do these discuss audio amp designs but also how to build test equipment to measure the results.

Oh, sorry, the author John Linsley Hood

Most textbooks with "transistor, electronic, circuits" in the tiltles have chapters on audio amp design.

Texts by

Olsen, Amos, Ryder, Hartly-Jones, come to mind.

Ask in your local library.

While you are there ask them to hunt out for you the manufacturers own books (not attributable to an author)

Texas Instruments, Mullard, RCA, Motorola all produced audio amp design textbooks.

Bertus has some on pdf here.
Thanks. I did manage to get a pdf of 'small signal audio amplifiers - douglas self' and it seems a whole lot more approachable.
I'll those out as well.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
I'm the kind if person that wants to understand every detail of everything, and this book isn't cutting it.
Well, that's a hard guy to be. Prepare yourself for a future of perpetually feeling "behind the curve," in everything. No single book can present a topic, even the simplest topic, in a format that every person can understand, and not leave out any details. Knowledge is infinite, and cannot fit in a book. I guarantee that if you got every top gun audio amplifier designer in the world together in one room, not one of them would know everything there is to know about designing amplifiers, and their knowledge combined still would not fill the void of things yet to be discovered.

I'm sure you knew all that already, so here's some more practical advice:
I learn best without learning from any one book. If I sit down and read words from left to right and top to bottom, with no practical context, I absorb almost nil, and I understand very little of what I am reading. I keep books (my best book is google.com) around as reference to fall back on, when I don't understand real-world problems.

I've never built an audio amplifier, but if I were going to, my process would NOT look like this: Get a 900 page book, read it cover-to-cover it, gaze at the diagrams in the appendices starting on page 880, and then try to build an audio amplifier. If I tried that, guaranteed, I would be on AAC later that day, bitching about the book.

My process would look more like this: find an audio amplifier circuit on Google, buy the components. As I build it, I wonder what each component does, so I google some about it, and how it interacts with the other components. Finish the build, it sounds like shit, google "why does my amp sound like shit?". Can't find the answer on google, post a thread on AllAboutCircuits, and look for the answer in a book while I wait for the discussion to start rolling in. Bounce what I'm reading on AAC off of what I'm reading in my book, resolve the problem and how to fix it. Modify the circuit, still sounds like shit, repeat. It will be a long process of one-step-forward-and-two-steps-back, and I will probably make a dozen circuits before I get an acceptable result (acceptable result = worse quality than the cheapest commercial amp), but by the time I'm done, I'll have learned more than I would have reading the book. And that's not to say that I now know more information than what's contained in the book. That's to say that I retained and understood more of the concepts involved, by practical exercise, than I would have retained and understood by reading them off of a page. NOW, now and only now; now that I've gotten my hands dirty building the circuits in real life and have some context with which to read text about the subject, am I ready to read the book cover-to-cover, and the only purpose of reading the book at this point is to fill in the gaps that I missed by not following a logical sequence. Once I finish the book, it's back to the lab again, building trial & error circuits again, on a quest of continual improvement, more googling, more reading of books, more circuit building, and so-on. If I haven't made the world's best amp within a decade or two, it's probably time to move on to another quest.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
I agree with strantor, an iterative process is best. Shooting for the stars means you will not likely get off the ground. Try a small jump, then a short flight, ...

You will learn a lot along the way.
You may even learn that you like other areas of electronics better than audio.
 

Thread Starter

imbaine13

Joined Oct 6, 2013
67
Well, that's a hard guy to be. Prepare yourself for a future of perpetually feeling "behind the curve," in everything. No single book can present a topic, even the simplest topic, in a format that every person can understand, and not leave out any details. Knowledge is infinite, and cannot fit in a book. I guarantee that if you got every top gun audio amplifier designer in the world together in one room, not one of them would know everything there is to know about designing amplifiers, and their knowledge combined still would not fill the void of things yet to be discovered.

I'm sure you knew all that already, so here's some more practical advice:
I learn best without learning from any one book. If I sit down and read words from left to right and top to bottom, with no practical context, I absorb almost nil, and I understand very little of what I am reading. I keep books (my best book is google.com) around as reference to fall back on, when I don't understand real-world problems.

I've never built an audio amplifier, but if I were going to, my process would NOT look like this: Get a 900 page book, read it cover-to-cover it, gaze at the diagrams in the appendices starting on page 880, and then try to build an audio amplifier. If I tried that, guaranteed, I would be on AAC later that day, bitching about the book.

My process would look more like this: find an audio amplifier circuit on Google, buy the components. As I build it, I wonder what each component does, so I google some about it, and how it interacts with the other components. Finish the build, it sounds like shit, google "why does my amp sound like shit?". Can't find the answer on google, post a thread on AllAboutCircuits, and look for the answer in a book while I wait for the discussion to start rolling in. Bounce what I'm reading on AAC off of what I'm reading in my book, resolve the problem and how to fix it. Modify the circuit, still sounds like shit, repeat. It will be a long process of one-step-forward-and-two-steps-back, and I will probably make a dozen circuits before I get an acceptable result (acceptable result = worse quality than the cheapest commercial amp), but by the time I'm done, I'll have learned more than I would have reading the book. And that's not to say that I now know more information than what's contained in the book. That's to say that I retained and understood more of the concepts involved, by practical exercise, than I would have retained and understood by reading them off of a page. NOW, now and only now; now that I've gotten my hands dirty building the circuits in real life and have some context with which to read text about the subject, am I ready to read the book cover-to-cover, and the only purpose of reading the book at this point is to fill in the gaps that I missed by not following a logical sequence. Once I finish the book, it's back to the lab again, building trial & error circuits again, on a quest of continual improvement, more googling, more reading of books, more circuit building, and so-on. If I haven't made the world's best amp within a decade or two, it's probably time to move on to another quest.
Thanks, Strantor. That did sink in! As I mentioned earlier, I have been studying electronics for about two years now and even though it doesn't seem like much, I've picked up quite a bit along the way. I built my first and only audio amp (so far) about two months ago and it sounded good for a first build. I could barely hear any distortion which was surprising considering I relied on the op amp's fast slew rate (10v/us) to restraint crossover distortion. I did however use an op amp and that's where the unsatisfaction arose. I later felt the need to actually construct the op amp! (Like I said, I like to know everything). I was reluctant to start with the basic one transistor amps mostly because I didn't think they'd teach me much, but I'm starting to think I was seriously mistaken. I know I may be way ahead of myself but I just can't resist it. I have followed that approach most of the time when learning electronics but for some reason, I thought I'd try something different for this endeavour. I will get to it immediately.
Thanks a lot.
 

Thread Starter

imbaine13

Joined Oct 6, 2013
67
I agree with strantor, an iterative process is best. Shooting for the stars means you will not likely get off the ground. Try a small jump, then a short flight, ...

You will learn a lot along the way.
You may even learn that you like other areas of electronics better than audio.
That is very encouraging. I actually prefer power electronics design and construction to most other electronics stuff, but I thought it would fun and exciting to try something new.
Thanks.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
Here. I'm going to quote myself from a few years ago:

"There are a lot of new words in this writing. You have to use the words until you begin to understand them. It takes time for your brain to make sense of this. You are allowed to read this as many times as you want to. We all go back and read stuff we have read before. Electronics is just too complicated to hold it all in your head, but Ohm's Law is small enough that you can learn it and keep it in your head."

NOBODY can know it all! (I can't even remember why I changed a capacitor size on a triac 20 years ago until I read my notes.) Think about the decades of experience and tweaking that has been done on telephone switching circuits or microwave towers or Ph sensors and you will realize there isn't enough time in a century to know everything. Besides that, your brain will forget what you were doing 10 years ago to the point that anybody that has been doing that continuously for the last year will be better at it than your stale memories. Get real!
 

darrough

Joined Jan 18, 2015
86
Art of Electronics is popular with rather gifted people that have an advanced education in science and want to build equipment for experiments. It is not meant as a tutorial.

There are some good self teaching books.

Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics by Stan Gibilisco.
The All New Electronics Self Teaching Guide by Harry Kybett and Earl Boysen.

Neither one requires calculus, just a little bit of trig. They both give the reader enough to figure out whats going on in any common circuit.

If you want a lab manual, try Experiments with Electronic Circuits by Sid Antoch. Be forewarned that the book requires an oscilloscope.

If your interest is more in the science of electricity than circuit making, then try A Kitchen Course in Electricity and Magnetism by David Nightingale and Christopher Spencer. It's got to be the best conceptual explanation of electricity. It has a number of simple experiments too.
 

Veracohr

Joined Jan 3, 2011
772
If you want a lab manual, try Experiments with Electronic Circuits by Sid Antoch. Be forewarned that the book requires an oscilloscope.
I believe I have that book, or at least did at one point. Sid was one of my teachers and I remember using a lab book he wrote. I don't remember much about it but it was probably good, he was a good teacher.
 

tracecom

Joined Apr 16, 2010
3,944
I hope you will present a short review of it here. I have been thinking of getting it too, but sometimes the sequel is a disappointment.

John
I will be happy to do that, but I have never used a prior edition, and won't be able to compare them. I really am looking forward to using the book.
 

studiot

Joined Nov 9, 2007
4,998
I am not a great fan of the book, it has many shortcomings.

But one thing it did do that most don't.
It demonstrated what not to do(and often why not), which is almost as important.

Most texts just offer a collection of configurations that work and when the confronted with something entirely new it can be a real test of understanding to deal with the new circuit if all one knows is what was in some book's collection of what to do.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
But one thing it did do that most don't.
It demonstrated what not to do(and often why not), which is almost as important.
What to NOT do requires even more book than what TO do. Correct circuits are finite in number. Incorrect circuits are infinite in number. Most people find out the hard way, by eliminating mistakes, one by one, over a period of years.

Gratitude.
 

OBW0549

Joined Mar 2, 2015
3,566
I am not a great fan of the book, it has many shortcomings.
I bought the 2nd Edition back in 2004, five years after its publication, and already a significant portion of the content was outdated, especially the material on embedded systems design. There is a lot of good stuff in there, but I'm not convinced it was worth the ~$100 cost. I probably will not by buying the 3rd Edition unless I see a lot of convincingly positive reviews.

But one thing it did do that most don't.
It demonstrated what not to do(and often why not), which is almost as important.
Amen to that!

Another book that's a goldmine of "what NOT to do" information, and with a lot more explanation, is Troubleshooting Analog Circuits by Robert Pease. Over the years I've found it a lot more useful than TAoE, because it's as much about designing analog electronics for reliable operation as it is about troubleshooting.
 
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