• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

Merlin New Book

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#41
audiohead said:
My knowledge of tube amplifiers comes from reading Morgan Jones books. I have the greatest respect for him technically.
I got my BSEE degree back in 1978. I will be 71 in July. At my old age I am finding out that the more I read , I realize that how little I know.

Art
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Some years back, Patrick Turner lent me his 1963 print of the Radiotron Designers Handbook - I promptly found my own. Morgan's books followed, along with many others that I read and then passed on. Among those that have stuck (including Fritz Langford-Smith's and Morgan's) are Valley and Wallman, various editions of Terman, Landee, a compilation of articles by Crowhurst and Cooper, all editions of Linear Audio and .... Merlin's.

I have come to find the power supply the central challenge in all of my designs, I have benefited from the works of Morgan and others, and I look forward to reading Merlin's 2nd edition, especially his approach to engineering design. On which subject, Ed Cherry and the late Don Hooper's 1968 Amplifying Devices and Low-Pass Amplifier Design occupies a special place on my shelf for its focus on engineering design - the intent that students of the art "should at some stage be confronted with the fact that physically realizable systems are not ideal". The book is hard to find but I notice that nowadays worldradiohistory.com has an excellent pdf available for download.
 
#43
Ed Cherry and the late Don Hooper's 1968 Amplifying Devices and Low-Pass Amplifier Design
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pdf 1000+ pages.
You'll need a new ream of paper and a new toner cartridge and maybe a new printer. Where to get a paper clamp that big? You'll need a drill press to drill holes on the edge for binding threads and glue.
$270 as used paperback book.
I think you just want to print out the sections of interest. 40+ pgs directly on tubes. Certainly some other sections of interest.
Table of contents is like 10 pgs. List of symbols and subscripts 20 pgs. Index 18 pgs. Someday, a cold winter's night, heat coming off the hot Laser printer....
 
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#46
Got my copy too. This is really a unique book, I don't know of any other book that addresses the subjects related to (tube) power supply design in such a comprehensive way. I mean, most of us know that if you increase the reservoir cap, the ripple voltage goes down, but the peak ripple currents in the wiring go up. Now we have a quantative analysis to base our choices on. But there's of course much, much more - pick a subject in psu design and Merlin has you covered.
I also like that Merlin uses solid state where it makes sense, and tubes where that makes sense. No emotional hangup that one or the other is by definition bad. Confidence inspiring.

Well worth the price, and the print quality is really very good, obviously POD has come a long way. Recommended.

Jan
 
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#48
I got my copy too. Read it over the weekend.
I now have the triumvirate, High-Fidelity Valve Preamps, Valve Guitar Preamps, and now this new Power Supplies for Valve Amplifiers book. I've learned a ton from them.

I find Merlin's books to be very understandable, easily comprehended. Nice progression from topic to topic. Some nice circuits to try out too (like the series CCS/shunt active zener voltage stabilizer).

Thanks Merlin.
 
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#49
Happy Swiss reader since 2 hours, I got my book as well. It covers everything I can think of, maybe short of the "ideal diode bridge" rectifiers I discovered a few weeks ago. Not sure they have an application in Tube amps though. So yes I'm happy with my purchase, the quality of the product and from the few pages I was able to read between arrival and lunch it looks like the content is of real good quality. Thank you Merlin to pass on all this precious knowledge !
 
#50
Chris Hornbeck said:
FWIW, fairly recent copies of Linear Audio, reported to be printed on demand, look exactly to my eyes, like the oldest paper editions. The current book-making technology is plenty close enough to perfect as to be not an issue. We're lucky enough to be living in a time when this is possible. If you're interested in building your reference library, folks (of my generation) most often started with ancient texts like W.G.Dow Fundamentals of Engineering Electronics 1937 and RDH4 (1953? postwar anyway) both essential(ish). Can't easily start with these 'cause they're dry as toast, and that's the best of what was.

Contemporary journalism can too often be a fashion-oriented enterprise. Two exceptions are M.B.'s books and J.D's bookzines. Not fashion-forward, not style, not the latest trend, (but often the latest trend later), just explorations forward with real data. We so often expect all pertinent information be be available by a Google search, and, of course for "free". Reality check: information has value.

By that same token, everyone can contribute on diyAudio in that same spirit of advancing the state of our craft (possibly a higher calling even than art). Nobody has a death grip on truth, and lots of what we read on the Internet is kaka, so books still matter. DiyAudio does an amazing job of keeping it real.

All good fortune,
Chris
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I think that modern technology is replacing printed books with its versatility and there is no point in buying printed samples if everything is available electronically.
 
#56
The chapter on voltage stabilizers and voltage regulators for tube circuits is very worthwhile. Check out the end of the section on shunt stabilizers. 😉

Also... I still prefer the experience of reading a paper book to reading from a screen. That's a luxury I don't mind paying for. Of course, I also still listen to records, so it might just be that I'm an 'anachrophile'...
 
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#57
My favorite bit from Merlins book so far...

I like the idea of using XL4015 buck converter followed by a linear regulator to get practically any DC filament voltage you'd need with lower power factor losses. I just ordered some buck modules to try this out. Gonna hook the dual 6 volt secondaries in series, bridge, reservoir C1, buck converter set to 9V, then linear regulate that to 6.1 volts for filaments and my input source relay board I'll make with 6V Fujitsu relays. The buck runs at 180kHz well above audio and is 96% efficient, can buck to the ideal voltage ahead of the LM1084 which would clean up artifacts and regulate from just the right reasonable drop (9V) so it is cooler too. Maybe I'll use the slow start capacitor from the LM1084 datasheet too.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/311820844395?var=610686400837
 
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#59
Windcrest77 said:
My favorite bit from Merlins book so far...

I like the idea of using XL4015 buck converter followed by a linear regulator to get practically any DC filament voltage you'd need with lower power factor losses. I just ordered some buck modules to try this out. Gonna hook the dual 6 volt secondaries in series, bridge, reservoir C1, buck converter set to 9V, then linear regulate that to 6.1 volts for filaments and my input source relay board I'll make with 6V Fujitsu relays. The buck runs at 180kHz well above audio and is 96% efficient, can buck to the ideal voltage ahead of the LM1084 which would clean up artifacts and regulate from just the right reasonable drop (9V) so it is cooler too. Maybe I'll use the slow start capacitor from the LM1084 datasheet too.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/311820844395?var=610686400837
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180kHz is a little dated these days.
300-1000kHz is quite normal these days and very easy to filter out.
The downside is that linear regulators won't do much anymore at those frequencies in sense of filtering. Even at 180kHz one has to check the datasheet.
 
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