Student Manual for The Art of Electronics?

[tresch]

After searching around on the forum, the general consensus seemed to be that The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill is the premium book for people trying to get into electronics in general.

I ordered one online, used, and just received it the other day.

Unfortunately, it looks like I got something else. What I received was The Student Manual for The Art of Electronics by Horowits and Hayes.

It appears from the preface that this book was designed to go along with The Art... but is somewhat abridged, designed specifically to compress the book into an actual college course, with labs and exercises and such.

A couple excerpts from the Preface:

"This manual is intended to be used along with The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill..., in an introductory electronics course"

and

"These notes arose out of a course at Harvard; they define what we try to teach in that busy term. The course does less than all of Horowitz and Hill, of course. We treat chapters 1-11, omitting Chapter 7, on Precision Circuits..., which is more specialized than the rest, and skimming Chapter 4 on Active Filters and Oscillators."

Anyone else had experience with this book? Think it would be enough, or should I go searching for the original work, as well?

Either way, I'll be digging into it pretty soon and I'll have a report of my own, if anyone else is interested

[Irakli]

No, its not enough. Get the real thing and return this one back.

[Conrad Hoffman]

No, you need the actual book. I have both and the student manual has some additional material, but not enough to really justify it, and certainly not enough total content to replace the book. I only got it because it was on sale a long long time ago. Paying list prices, I'm not even sure The Art of Electronics would be on my short list. It's good, but some of the material is getting quite dated. Today I'd probably look for used EE text books like Boylestead, copies of Jung's op-amp book, Doug Self's amp book, and maybe Lancaster's or others filter book. IMO, one should also have a good text on switching power supplies these days. You could probably get 3-5 good used books for the price of TAE.

[tresch]

Any particular text of Boylestead's that you'd recommend? There are a lot of them, and none of them jump out and say "Read this if you want to learn about electronics"

The attractive thing about TAE is the range of material it covers, from totally scratch to quite advanced. I don't really want to get another amp-specific book yet, as I already got one of those and I've realized I need to get down to the basics first.

[AndrewT]

I have Horowitz & Hill.
I also have Doug Self and John L Hood. Both are far better.
Even the ARRL handbook is better than H&H.
Download Jung's opamp design manual.

Read Pass & ESP.

[analog_sa]

Originally posted by AndrewT
I have Horowitz & Hill.
I also have Doug Self and John L Hood. Both are far better.

Better in what respect? tresch is looking for a general text on electronics not necessarily audio.

[tresch]

I'm just guessing at which actual titles you're referring to, but they all seem to be specifically about amplifier design. I'll not be buying another book an amplifier design unless I know for certain it is written for someone who has essentially no background in electronics whatsoever. I'm only a notch above that level. I understand basic components well enough for crossover design at this point, but beyond that I got nothin. I have zero previous experience or schooling involving anything electronic in nature.

I do appreciate the suggestions, and I'll keep them in mind once I'm at that next level! I also have the "High Power Amplifier Construction Manual" by Slone, and I'm hoping something like TAE can bridge the gap between my current knowledge and what is required for that book, but I'm guessing I'll need an intermediary text

[Conrad Hoffman]

These are books you'll keep for the rest of your career because they cover many basics, but also give you enough math for near anything you'd want to do, something TAE is very weak on. I'm the world's worst at math, but with these books I can keep up with just about anybody. IMHO, Terman and Boylestad are almost essential for any analog engineer.

Electronic and Radio Engineering, Terman, I prefer the 1955 edition because the topics were expanded. The earlier editions have a bit more detail on certain fundamentals, but most people will never need to go quite that deep. Common enough that you should be able to find one at a reasonable price, though all engineering texts have been rising in price over the last 5 years or so. Almost anything by Terman is worth buying- there are at least 4-5 other books that cover more specific areas, but this one is best.

Radiotron Designers Handbook. I list this because I think you can download it for free (huge) and it covers a lot of ground. Yes, it's old. I just ignore the radio stuff unless it's applicable to what I'm doing.

Introductory Circuit Analysis, Boylestad, 5th edition. This could be up to any edition by now, as it's a common college text. Expensive new, but easily available used and I refer to it constantly. All the fundamentals are here, easy to understand math, and it has a good practical approach. An excellent place to start.

Sometimes people in a niche branch of a field will have different terminology and a bit of a different approach than is mainstream. Watch out for that if you use the ARRL handbook. They're useful, easily available and cheap, but unless you're really interested in radio, the other books are better. IMO, even if you *are* interested in radio, the fundamentals from the other books are better. ;-)

[Irakli]

Here is a very good book to consider. I was a very big fan of this book 20 years ago (first edition). Have not seen this last edition though.
http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Cir...=307J40K4XDPFQ

[Juergen Knoop]

the 'Tietze/Schenk' a standard book for self education in Germany. Either for non EE-students or because the chosen EE courses scratch circuit design only marginally.
The language is somewhat academic compared to the Horowitz/Hill.
But I have only thumped through the H./H. and don't know what is lost in the T&S translation into english.
Regards