Books for amplifiers

[razorrick1293]

Hi there,
Im doing a dissertation about valve vs solidstate vs hybrid, and just wanted to know, are there any books which cover all of these topics? or any kind of website/publication? if so which would be the best, or most in depth place to look.
failing that, what would be the best forum to ask in?

[Merlinb]

There aren't many that specifically cover valve and solid state audio simultaneously (except at a basic 1960s textbook level). This is the only one I know of:
Valve & transistor audio amplifiers By John Linsley Hood

Valve & transistor audio amplifiers - John Linsley Hood - Google Books

[DF96]

There was an article in an IEEE magazine a few years ago, about the way valves/tubes were making a comeback in audio. I think it is available online somewhere.

This forum is as good as any as a place to ask questions, but you need to be aware that some people will answer with 'religious' fervour for their point of view. Actually, you can find most of what you might need simply by searching as this sort of issue comes up regularly, even in threads which start on quite a different topic.

[Merlinb]

Originally Posted by DF96

There was an article in an IEEE magazine a few years ago, about the way valves/tubes were making a comeback in audio. I think it is available online somewhere.

Think you mean this one:
The Cool Sound of Tubes - IEEE Spectrum

[DF96]

Yes, that is it.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by razorrick1293

Hi there,
Im doing a dissertation about valve vs solidstate vs hybrid, and just wanted to know, are there any books which cover all of these topics? or any kind of website/publication? if so which would be the best, or most in depth place to look.
failing that, what would be the best forum to ask in?

This is a tough subject, lots of opinions. If you want to make a new contribution. (You see you are writting a "dissertation" which implies more than summarizing other's work) Then you may want to look into human perception of sound. Our ears evolved to keep us alive on the plains of Africa. They are well suited to that task. If a tiger steps on a twig and snaps it we know the direction and distance of that tiny sound. But we can't do the same with the huge sound of thunder. The one major thing that "everyone" forgets when they argue about HiFi gear is that in the end human ears are what listen to it. I'd study psychoacoustics first. A decent introduction is here: Psychoacoustics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The other thing to know is music. There is a very direct coresponance between what musicians calll and "interval" (they use terms late "unison" and dominant, or sub-dominate or "octave" or many times use roman numerals to talk about intervals) and what engineers call "harmonic series". If you look a the different between tubes and transistors in engineering terms, then translate engineer-speak to musician's lingo it is easy to see why tubes are making a come back.

Much of the easy to find material is in enginerring text books but if you read only that you think pepple are nut now days to use anything except solid state amps with large amounts of feedback. Only after reading up on music theory and psychoacoustics does it make sense to still be using vacuue tubes in HiFi and you will see why this is 100 time more true with musical instrument amps

[razorrick1293]

thank you very much! i didnt think of human perception as well. for a level 3 qualification (A level, or what ever else its called else where) i probably wouldnt need to go into too much detail, though its a shame, we're given 6000 words as a guideline for the whole thing, but i could probably drag it out alot more...
as for asking questions on the forums, i know its not a good idea with purists and all.
The books are for referencing, and quoting mainly.