Interesting books....

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#281
mikeks said:
From ab initio, i reckon one needs to spend $20 000 to get the essential books in linear electronics..

For DSP, you are looking at another $10 000.... 🙁
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Well, if you want to get a comprehensive set of books in ANY technical area, it'll cost. But take John's suggestions very seriously; "A of E" really does cover 90% of the map. One or two texts specializing in what interests you can complete the deal.
 
#282
Hi,

"Art of Electronics":
1= poorest 10= perfection
Readable? 8
Informative? 9
Lacking anything? 8
Essential? 10

It's a book you just can't ever stop going back to.

At times confusing, because it often condenses what would otherwise be redudant text inside (), and there's alot of that. Its biggest problem is that it sometimes assumes too much.

I highly recommend picking up the student manual for it as well, it's not as expensive and provides some excellent worked examples that can help fill in a few blanks the book can leave you with. Don't bother getting it without AoE though.

It really is the Bible of electronics and should be considered an essential part of everyones tool box, right along with the 555.

I also agree with what you said, SY, but what I'd like to know is what those few other essential specialized books should be.

How about a good one for control theory ?
Transistor design..?

Any others?
 
#285
I think it could be improved mainly by not assuming so much and certainly by not leaving so many open, unanswered questions.

At the same time I think it's the most diverse electronics book I've ever seen touching upon a very wide range of topics and doesn't ever lose you with equations. I find it lacking worked examples in alot of areas though, I really like those!

I certainly won't claim it's perfect, but I will claim it's the best book you can buy, dollar for dollar, it can't be beat.
 
#286
Mikek is either here to confuse, or just to contradict the rest of us. ;-) I find the A of E to be very important for those of you who want to know how to design circuits.
Let me give you an example:
Decades ago, in 1978, someone at Tektronix turned me on to Toshiba jfets, mainly the 2SK147 and the 2SJ72. These are super low noise jfets.
Guess what? On page 444 of A of E, is: "... or look for a large geometry JFET such as the 2SJ72 or the 2SK147 mentioned earlier. "
What do you think the secret of the Vendetta Phono input stage is? I spec at 0.4 nV/rt Hz with FET's!. Match that, you OP AMP loving punks! ;-) Especially in a REAL CIRCUIT.
Here is the real info, for just the price of the book.
Now, do I reference this book a lot? No. Why? Because I already know 90% of the stuff in the book, after 40 years of design and research. Think what the rest of you are missing! That missing 10% is what keeps me ahead of the pack, so to speak, but that takes perhaps 100 extra textbooks, each giving me a little more info that what I already know.
Now, is this book a bargain, or what?
 
#287
Actually, i came to A of E rather late...having acquired 80% of its content from specialist texts and papers.....

From this perspective, i found the authors tended to gloss over details a smidgen too much for my taste....


I agree almost 100% with this reviewers points at

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cu...54573-2770237?_encoding=UTF8&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER

This book whets your appetite but ultimately fails to empower the reader.

The scope of this book is much too wide, its attempt to cover both digital and analogue exasperbates this.

The analogue circuit building blocks are often either too simple, or vagely explained with inadeqaute DESIGN (mathematics) information to actually make them useful, and allow the reader to MODIFY them to suit a specific application.

The book is not coherent or detailed enough to serve as a stand-alone introduction to electronics and is not detailed enough to be useful for a more seasoned reader who actually wants to design something with minimal guesswork.

So what exactly is the target audience?

Quite often REAL WORLD circuits are not provided, with excuses like "The best approach is probably to buy a commercial VCXO, rather than attempt to design your own." (ch.5 p.302).

It is possible to build a simple VCXO from a few discrete components that is quite suitable for many less demanding applications.

I purchased this book to LEARN how to design practical circuits, not to be told to go out and buy a pre-built solutions that are likely too expensive, hard to find and overkill for my projects (we don't all live in the middle of silicone valley you know!)

When practical designs are shown, like the "Real-world switcher example" (pp.361-366 ch.6) they are obviously far to complicated to study in enough depth to leave the reader with anything more than a general understanding, rather than real design knowledge.

Once again, it would be possible in this book to explain a the design process for a simple, but practical Buck Converter, so why not provide such an example?

Too much of this book serves more like an incoherent GLOSSARY rather than a bible, with plenty of talk, that often leads to no substance.

If this book is stripped down to include only the information that can be applied/adapted to a practical design it would become very thin indeed.

In modern times even a general internet search engine serves as a much more powerful (and constantly growing) glossary, than any "jack of all trades, master of none" book like this could ever hope for.
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#289
Amatuers beware....

Another review i totaly agree with:

I was so dissappointed with this book. I love buying books and when I was a physics major I couldn't resist buying this book which promised to cover entire electronics in an "intuitive" easy to understand manner.

The moment I tried to read it however, I was turned off by too brief little sections.

This book might be a good summary if you already know the subject or if you are good at learning sparsely explained material.

However this will make a terrible text book for people like me who like a more systhematic, detailed explanations.

I was able to read and understand the most complicated books on electronics ( Tsividis' book on MOS transistor for example) a lot easier because they really explained things.

I know this book is considered a classic, but somebody has to warn people like me from the mistake of buying this book.

The biggest mistake you can make in buying a book is because it's a "classic".

I think the star ratings should be taken as an indication of how much the person who read the book enjoyed it, and should give you an indication of how much you might enjoy ( or hate!) a book.

So instead of "How do you rate this book", maybe Amazon.com should ask "How did you enjoy or like this book."

Now that I know electronics, I might like this book more if I reread it, but I have a lot better advanced books for that purpose.

For an initial introduction to electronics, luckily I found Sedra & Smith's "Microelectronic Circuits" which made it all comprehensible.

(Ironically that book is rated a lot worse than this one!)
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TRUE!!
 
#292
Sorry to say folks but I'm in full agreement with that review Mikeks posted as well!

It leaves one with nothing but questions, I don't consider that a bad thing though, it still covers alot of topics and "touches" upon alot of important points but it doesn't do the best job of teaching one how to design anything.

People should know that before they go spend $100 on it. I still feel it's very worthwhile.
 
#298
Hey I'm honest about it!

It IS a great book, but it leaves you wanting!

I think it's because it touches upon such a wide range of topics one might not have otherwise been aware of. Basically, it gives you more questions than answers.

Step 1 to any solution is being able to ask the right question.
It's Step 2 that it doesn't cover very well.
 
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