Building Valve Amplifiers [Paperback]

Morgan Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0750656956 | ISBN-13: 978-0750656955 | Edition: 1

If you actually intend to create, modify, restore or repair tube audio equipment, I would highly recommend purchasing Building Valve Amplifiers, even if you are seasoned by many years of practical experience. I am convinced that all readers will be amazed at the quantity of new useful knowledge it contains. Audio Ideas Guide magazine

This book can be thoroughly recommended for experienced builders and novices alike. Electronics World

Building Valve Amplifiers is a unique hands-on guide for anyone working with tube audio equipment - as an electronics experimenter, audiophile or audio engineer. Particular attention has been paid to answering questions commonly asked by newcomers to the world of the vacuum tube, whether audio enthusiasts tackling their first build, or more experienced amplifier designers seeking to learn the ropes of working with valves. The practical side of this book is reinforced by numerous clear illustrations throughout.

As well as the design and build of new valve amplifiers, complete with constructional projects, Morgan Jones introduces the modification, fault-finding and repair of new and classic equipment.

The companion volume to Building Valve Amplifiers, Morgan Jones's Valve Amplifiers, has been widely recognised as the most complete guide to valve amplifier design written for over 30 years. It introduces the art of valve electronics to the newcomer and provides ready-made practical circuits that will be of great value to enthusiasts and professional audio designers alike.

· The practical guide to building, modifying, fault-finding and repairing vacuum tube amplifiers
· A hands-on approach to tube electronics - classic and modern - with a minimum of theory
· Design, fault-finding, and testing are each illustrated by step-by-step examples
· Written by the author of the audiophile cult classic, Valve Amplifiers

Editorial Reviews

Review

For starters and perhaps surprisingly considering its title, this book offers a wealth of practical knowledge that goes well beyond hollow-state applications as many topics are just as relevant in the successful inplementation of solid-state designs...The sheer quantity of practical, tried and true information is most impressive and clearly indicates that many individuals and organizations contributed by sharing the hard-earned skills and expertise. The over 200 high quality illustrations also help to reinforce the points made in the well-written text...I was particularly impressed with the chapter on choosing new and used test equipment. The discussion regarding the advantages and disadvantages of analog and digital meters and scopes is exceptionally well done. The information is presented with a minimum of math yet is well supported by excellent examples and illustrations that clearly bring home the salient points. The reader is truly receiving a concentrated practical course in instrumentation...If you actually intend to create, modify, restore or repair tube audio equipment, I would highly recommend purchasing Building Valve Amplifiers even if you are seasoned by many years of practical experience. I am convinced that all readers will be amazed at the quantity of new useful knowledge it contains.

- James H. Hayward to appear in Andrew Marshall's Audio Ideas Guide Magazine

Book Description

The definitive valve amplifier cookbook for classic and modern equipment

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Newnes; 1 edition (August 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750656956
• ISBN-13: 978-0750656955
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #48,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Acoustics & Sound
  • #34 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Recording & Sound

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive, don't build a tube amp without this!, October 2, 2004

By 

Bighairydoofus "-" (Brooklyn Park, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Valve Amplifiers (Paperback)

I recently purchased this, the companion work to the author's definitive book on tube amp design, Valve Amplifiers. There are quite a few books on how to design a tube amp, but very few resources available on how to safely construct them. I say safely because vacuum tube amplifiers use voltages that are lethal, some extreme designs using voltages in excess of a kilovolt! Safety is essential when dealing with tube amps at all times.

Originally, the author covered amplifier construction techniques in the first edition of Valve Amplifiers, but that volume is now in it's third edition and is over six hundred pages long WITHOUT the construction section. It's understandable that Mr. Jones decided to put out a separate tome on amp construction, since the construction information is as long as the entire first edition of Valve Amplifiers.

This book goes into great detail on how to build a chassis, wiring techniques, PCB's, metalwork and assembly using only hand tools. Examples are given of tools to be used (often with more than one choice for a given job) and how to use them properly. The book then goes on to explain the use of oscilloscopes, distortion measurements and troubleshooting, completely illustrated with pictures and drawings needed to do these things. There are also useful tricks, such as using a discarded radio tuning capacitor to find the optimum capacitance for feedback compensation.

This, along with Valve Amplifiers, are the definitive modern works for the amateur on how to design and build tube amplifiers. If you're interested in tube DIY audio, there just aren't any substitutes for these books, they're simply the best currently available, period.

71 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars shop and compare, February 11, 2005

By 

Frank Elliott "Captain Fitzroy" (Hendersonville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Building Valve Amplifiers (Paperback)

It is safe to assume that if you are considering this book, you feel you have ingested enough theory and are now ready for the nuts and bolts of assembling a vacuum tube amp of your own.
(Not the least of which regards the critical importance of safety when dealing with lethal voltages)
My rating of this book is a little low, inasmuch as the buyer might be disappointed to see so few words about assembly, and so many more chapters of theoretical/empirical esoterica. The author here is no slacker. He obviously has spent a lifetime in the field and has a vast body of expertise to share; and does so in that ever popular British circumlocutive amble. There is indeed a lot of subtle minutiae in the book that is informative, entertaining, and edifying. But aren't we interested in what to do and what not to do and why we do it this way and not that way regarding assembling the actual components? You can find all that info in this book; including what tools will help immensely and save a lot of starting over, and cursing inanimate objects on the way to starting over.
(and be encouraged to discover that even this practised author, Morgan Jones, has a bit of dread when he first powers up-hoping not to see sparks & smoke!)
But there are a couple more books that you might also consider:... On precisely what is taking place in a tube amp, one can do no better than to make sure to have on your electronics shelf, An all American classic by the late great USAF Colonel John Rider (of Rider Technical Publication fame)-a reprint of his superbly well written "Inside The Vacuum Tube". He takes you one step at a time; and at the beginning of a new chapter, reviews "what we learned, and explains what we will now learn and now build upon in the next chapter". In other words, it is a very well thought outand in depth treatise, with a beginning a middle and an end. You will emerge with a command of vacuum tube circuitry.
Once that is digested, ...and perhaps you are precisely at that point now... you want to know exactly why you use this value of resistor, and that value of capacitor, and this arrangement of components, and not THAT kind of resistor, etc,.. and I do mean exactly how...you will find no better book than another fine reprint by the title of "Mullard Tube Circuits For Audio Amplifiers" If it comes down to choosing one over the other, with both time and budget concerns...I'd go for the Mullard book, hands down, nol contendre. It gives all the exact reasons for why we provide feedback, precisely how the phase splitter splits the signal for the push pull, and why we even want a push pull rather than a single ended amp; and diagrams for drilling out the chassis, and time honored, and tested methods of assembly. 'S alright? 'Salright!

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful practical guide to building amplifiers..., December 28, 2004

By 

sir_isaac_newton (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Valve Amplifiers (Paperback)

...this book contains a lot of good, hard to find advice on the pratical issues that arise when building a tube amplier. This allows the novice to learn quickly without having to learn only by their own mistakes (which can be dangerous, frustating and costly). There are useful discussions on choosing basic equipment (although perhaps a little too much) such as Digital Volt Meters and Oscilloscopes. The author also usefully discusses sourcing components which is, in my experience, the big hidden work item you run into building your own electronics (especially tube electronics) these days.

This book, sensibly, does not contain a lot of theory (the author moved that to his other book -- which I did not find useful) or circuits for re-use -- but for the practical issues of safely producing a safe, robust, low noise amplifier this book is very good.

My interest is primarily guitar amplifiers and this book is equally applicable to that domain as it is to hi-fi amplifiers, albeit without any special consideration of guitar amplifier issues or circuits.

The authors writing style is fine (it could, perhaps be more concise in some areas) but the pictures and layout of the book are dated and, given that, the price seems high (although this book represents better value than the author's theory book, in my opinion).