Elektor have released a new book on Tube Amplifier Design.
"Fundamental Amplifier Techniques with Electron Tubes" by Rudolf Moers.
Fundamental Amplifier Techniques with Electron Tubes - ELEKTOR.com | Electronics: Microcontrollers Embedded Audio Digital Analogue Test Measurement
My copy arrived about a week ago and I have been browsing since.
This book very thoroughly covers the basics of tube operation and amplifier design in quite technical depth. It is at the level of a Technical College Text Book with in depth maths analysis and so will not suit everyone in the DIY community.
It is however an excellent technical reference.
Confused about (for example):
- Positive and Negative Grid Current
- Cathodyne Phase Splitter
- SRPP
- Cascode
This book gives you all of the basic formulae for gain, zout, zin etc with their full derivations from 1st principals. None of that "so it is therefore obvious that ...." when it never is, in the maths.
For example did you know that the gain of an SRPP stage with equal triodes and equal cathode resistors is always mu/2 and Zout is always rp/2 - I did'nt until I read this book.
Recommended for those of you with a bit of a maths/technical "bent", probably will go over the heads of those hobbiests who are mainly into cloning existing designs.
I find it VERY valuable and it sits on my bookshelf alongside my copies of RDH and Valley and Wallman.
Cheers,
Ian
"Fundamental Amplifier Techniques with Electron Tubes" by Rudolf Moers.
Fundamental Amplifier Techniques with Electron Tubes - ELEKTOR.com | Electronics: Microcontrollers Embedded Audio Digital Analogue Test Measurement
My copy arrived about a week ago and I have been browsing since.
This book very thoroughly covers the basics of tube operation and amplifier design in quite technical depth. It is at the level of a Technical College Text Book with in depth maths analysis and so will not suit everyone in the DIY community.
It is however an excellent technical reference.
Confused about (for example):
- Positive and Negative Grid Current
- Cathodyne Phase Splitter
- SRPP
- Cascode
This book gives you all of the basic formulae for gain, zout, zin etc with their full derivations from 1st principals. None of that "so it is therefore obvious that ...." when it never is, in the maths.
For example did you know that the gain of an SRPP stage with equal triodes and equal cathode resistors is always mu/2 and Zout is always rp/2 - I did'nt until I read this book.
Recommended for those of you with a bit of a maths/technical "bent", probably will go over the heads of those hobbiests who are mainly into cloning existing designs.
I find it VERY valuable and it sits on my bookshelf alongside my copies of RDH and Valley and Wallman.
Cheers,
Ian
It is only true if the bottom cathode resistor is un-bypassed. If the bottom cathode resistor is bypassed the gain is somewhat higher.
Cheers
Ian
And Zout is typically less than rp/2 - more like rp/3.
The stage with gain exactly mu/2 and Zout exactly rp/2 is the active load on a grounded cathode, with both cathode resistors bypassed. This may superficially look like an SRPP, but the output is taken from the bottom anode rather than the top cathode. I hope this is the reader's confusion, not a mistake in the book.
The stage with gain exactly mu/2 and Zout exactly rp/2 is the active load on a grounded cathode, with both cathode resistors bypassed. This may superficially look like an SRPP, but the output is taken from the bottom anode rather than the top cathode. I hope this is the reader's confusion, not a mistake in the book.
Is there a perfect derivation to that result in the book ?
There a few formulas for Zout of the SRPP stage (one by Amos and Birkinshaw, one from John Broskie etc...)
I don't need another book which is basically a composition of other, long ago pubished books. I see that everyday at the uni-library in classical/quatum mechanics. Nothing is more annoying than people who think they MUST write a book cause they spent some time with a topic.
The content index looks indeed interesting (though I don't need the chapter about construction) but the price is exorbitant.
"For years, author Rudolf Moers searched for a textbook about electron tube amplifiers in order to learn how to design amplifiers using electron tubes, given that one has a reasonable knowledge of analog electronics. Since he never found such a book, he has written one himself..."
Oh great...
"To achieve this, he studied many radio books and did many measurements. This was followed by the organization of all the information, making many drawings and calculations and a lot of writing. By all this effort, a lot of knowledge about electron tube electronics, which was under the threat of being lost, will be retained."
Yeah right. A historical debt of gratitude is owed...
Pardon the sarcasm, but seriously, the real honest to ghod textbooks and references for vacuum tubes and tube amplifiers are still available; Valley and Wallman, Reich, RDH...
My big concern about this trend is that after all this information gets redigested, regurgitated, and sometimes reinvented for DIYers, future generations will be left with an oversimplified, Stereophile magazine version of vacuum tube knowledge.
Hmmm, maybe I could write a book about tube amps...
Ouch, that price hurts! After my experience with Menno Vanderveen's latest book (see Linear Audio Vol 1 for a review), also from Elektor, I would wonder if they bothered getting the text translated and edited by someone with native-proficiency in English and an ability to write. That's one major advantage of the Morgan Jones books- the writing is crystal clear and (unlike Germans) he knows where his verbs to put.
The Contents list would suggest to me that the final text was not prepared by a native English speaker who was familiar with valves. It is generally OK, although too detailed, but in places expresses things in a way we probably would not (e.g. steepness instead of slope). It may still be perfectly understandable, but if a cheap paperback version comes out we may end up with a new generation of valve people who have to learn British, American and Elektor names for things.
Even worse! They all smell of chocolate, gouda, and tulips.
In all seriousness, my comments still stand- although the Dutch have, in general, excellent English, there are varying levels of English writing proficiency ranging from Menno's good-but-clearly-alien to yours or Jan's nearly-perfect-with-only-occasional-oddities.
In all seriousness, my comments still stand- although the Dutch have, in general, excellent English, there are varying levels of English writing proficiency ranging from Menno's good-but-clearly-alien to yours or Jan's nearly-perfect-with-only-occasional-oddities.
Yes, but we speak very well Dunglish and are a nation of undertakers.
Ps. The nation of undertakers refers to a former Dutch Prime Minister who wanted to say the Dutch were a nation of entrepreneurs.
From the Dunglish wikipedia entry:
Former prime-minister Joop den Uyl once remarked that "the Dutch are a nation of undertakers". The Dutch verb ondernemen is literally the English undertake (as onder is under and nemen is take). The noun ondernemer is thus literally undertaker, however the idiomatic English usage is instead the French loanword entrepreneur.[1] (Dutch uses the more specific begrafenisondernemer for a funeral director.)
Sorry about the threadjack.
I'll agree. The big problem with the Dutch when it comes to English is that they are over confident. Hence the term Dunglish. A while ago I heard a Dutch person say to someone (a foreigner) who had parked in a space reserved for physically lesser able people: "That is for people who don't can walk". A direct translation from: "Dat is voor mensen die slecht/niet kunnen lopen"
Ps. The nation of undertakers refers to a former Dutch Prime Minister who wanted to say the Dutch were a nation of entrepreneurs.
From the Dunglish wikipedia entry:
Former prime-minister Joop den Uyl once remarked that "the Dutch are a nation of undertakers". The Dutch verb ondernemen is literally the English undertake (as onder is under and nemen is take). The noun ondernemer is thus literally undertaker, however the idiomatic English usage is instead the French loanword entrepreneur.[1] (Dutch uses the more specific begrafenisondernemer for a funeral director.)
Sorry about the threadjack.
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In a rash moment I actually bought this book (I found it for £10 cheaper on ABE Books), thinking it would be full of practical amplifier circuits but it turns out to be highly theoretical (though the theory is backed up with loads of actual measurements). The translation, however, is problematic and doesn't read very idiomatically. Also the translator is sketchy on the terminology in English-language books. The worst example is using "basic" to mean "grounded" as in The theory of the basic anode circuit or cathode follower which should read "grounded anode". Presumably "basic" means "connected to ground" in Dutch, but has a very different connotation in English. Looks like it might be worth persevering with, though.
He is. His book was recommended to me by a colleague of him, but I too was shunned by the astronomical price of the book. Mr. Moers works at a company I got to know quite intimately over the past few years, although I've never met him in person (it's a relatively large organization).
In case you have any really important/relevant questions, you could contact me and I can put the questions through to Mr. Moers. It would at the same time give me a nice excuse to chat a bit about vacuum tubes with him.
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