Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbook
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"This is a true handbook in the 'just-about-everything-you'd-want-to know-in-one-volume' sense of the word... it is a resource for those who would like to gain some of Self's deep understanding of the subtleties of amplifier design. --EDN Magazine, January 23, 2003
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
This book is essential for audio power amplifier designers and engineers for one simple reason...it enables you as a professional to develop reliable, high-performance circuits. The Author Douglas Self covers the major issues of distortion and linearity, power supplies, overload, DC-protection and reactive loading. He also tackles unusual forms of compensation and distortion produced by capacitors and fuses.
This completely updated fifth edition includes four NEW chapters including one on The XD Principle, invented by the author, and used by Cambridge Audio. Crosstalk, power amplifier input systems, and microcontrollers in amplifiers are also now discussed in this fifth edition, making this book a must-have for audio power amplifier professionals and audiophiles.
*provides everything you want to know in one volume, providing an essential guide to design principals and practice
*Includes numerous graphs and easy to read layout to illustrate points and aid complete understanding
*Includes the author's own amp designs for readers to build upon and adapt
This completely updated fifth edition includes four NEW chapters including one on The XD Principle, invented by the author, and used by Cambridge Audio. Crosstalk, power amplifier input systems, and microcontrollers in amplifiers are also now discussed in this fifth edition, making this book a must-have for audio power amplifier professionals and audiophiles.
*provides everything you want to know in one volume, providing an essential guide to design principals and practice
*Includes numerous graphs and easy to read layout to illustrate points and aid complete understanding
*Includes the author's own amp designs for readers to build upon and adapt
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Buy this book. Having worked as a professional audio electronics design engineer I tell you Mr. Self knows his subject - for power amps far better than I. All his designs are based on facts and measurements. Such a blessed relief from those who would tell you that gold plated mains plugs give better "sound quality". Its written in a good readable style and I can only fault it in so far as I want more of the same. If you have even the smallest of interests in audio design, be educated and buy this book. If you have an old edition, the new one is well worth it for the extra bits on Class G et al.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A generally thorough analysis of a much-misunderstood topic. Many writers have produced books and articles on amplifier design, but only a few have explored the topic in a truly scientific fashion. Many writers instead adopt a "cookery" approach, citing "ingredients" as the key to a good design (e.g. special capacitors and resistors, silver wire etc.) but with no clear justification except their own (biased?) personal claims of superior sonic performance. As a seasoned professional electronics design engineer, and at the same time an audiophile, I suspect many of these "designers" are using speculation and opinion to account for effects or perceptions that are better explained by psycho-acoustics... (...and I can back up that from some experiments I've carried out on other audio enthusiast friends). The real problem arises, though, when this sort of superstition is used as a substitute for a clear and proper understanding.
Read the papers and book by Floyd Toole (e.g. Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms) for lots more about psycho-acoustics and a tour-de-force of how how we hear and perceive sound.
Love him or hate him, Douglas Self at least avoids the sort of traps I'm admittedly ranting about above, and refreshingly (for me at least) confines himself to demonstrable facts. Some of his comments will inevitably be ill-received by the subjective audio community - see above - but his challenge is simple enough: if your approach really sounds better, then prove it. For example, he recommends we use blind listening tests under properly controlled conditions. Hopefully someone will rise to this challenge and perhaps subjective reviews will gain a better standing; and if Self is proven wrong in the fullness of time, then we'll have really learned something.
Some of my design philosophies differ from his, and there is certainly no shortage of other opinion out there! But whether or not you end up agreeing 100% with Mr. Self doesn't really matter. Either way, this book remains an excellent tutorial in the nitty-gritty of power amplifier design. In particular I found the breakdown of the amplifier into its key stages,and the discussion of how these stages interact, most illuminating.
Study of this book will help amplifier designers of all persuasions in understanding and optimising their work, and I throughly recommend it.
Read the papers and book by Floyd Toole (e.g. Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms) for lots more about psycho-acoustics and a tour-de-force of how how we hear and perceive sound.
Love him or hate him, Douglas Self at least avoids the sort of traps I'm admittedly ranting about above, and refreshingly (for me at least) confines himself to demonstrable facts. Some of his comments will inevitably be ill-received by the subjective audio community - see above - but his challenge is simple enough: if your approach really sounds better, then prove it. For example, he recommends we use blind listening tests under properly controlled conditions. Hopefully someone will rise to this challenge and perhaps subjective reviews will gain a better standing; and if Self is proven wrong in the fullness of time, then we'll have really learned something.
Some of my design philosophies differ from his, and there is certainly no shortage of other opinion out there! But whether or not you end up agreeing 100% with Mr. Self doesn't really matter. Either way, this book remains an excellent tutorial in the nitty-gritty of power amplifier design. In particular I found the breakdown of the amplifier into its key stages,and the discussion of how these stages interact, most illuminating.
Study of this book will help amplifier designers of all persuasions in understanding and optimising their work, and I throughly recommend it.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Self is clearly an expert in his field and advocates a logical approach to audio amplifier design.
Sadly this is overshadowed a poor and irritating style of presenting information. As well as an extensive rant against subjectivism (where a paragraph would have sufficed). Throughout the text Self is perpetually telling the reader how he is the authority on the subject and correcting various fallacies that have been published by others. His points may well be true, but good technical texts present the bare technical facts and allow them to speak for themselves. Perhaps the occasional technical critisism of others is appropriate, however, the text is littered with the author's personal agenda. Also his means of expressing technical information is exceptionally rambling. I guess this is to allow for the lay reader ? Douglas, could you produce an Engineer's version of the book that includes a few more equations and a far more concise text ?
Sadly this is overshadowed a poor and irritating style of presenting information. As well as an extensive rant against subjectivism (where a paragraph would have sufficed). Throughout the text Self is perpetually telling the reader how he is the authority on the subject and correcting various fallacies that have been published by others. His points may well be true, but good technical texts present the bare technical facts and allow them to speak for themselves. Perhaps the occasional technical critisism of others is appropriate, however, the text is littered with the author's personal agenda. Also his means of expressing technical information is exceptionally rambling. I guess this is to allow for the lay reader ? Douglas, could you produce an Engineer's version of the book that includes a few more equations and a far more concise text ?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Narrow minded view of what makes a good amplifier
I have been reading articles by Self since the 70's, when he published an Article in Wireless World for an "advanced preamplifier" which is covered in another of his books. Read more
Published on 17 Oct 2009 by PJA
another curate's egg, 3.5 stars, limited but essential
Sadly, the subject of audio amplifier books are so thin on the ground as to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Read more
Published on 2 Sep 2009 by ian
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