# Best Tube amp (tech) books?



## Tyler Savage (Nov 16, 2009)

I recently received "*All about Vaccuum Tube Guitar Amplifiers*" for Christmas and have been enjoying reading it. While often Gerald Weber's writing doesn't give the scientific reasoning for something (he'll say doing something will, get rid of 'sizzle'), being a player I generally know what he's getting at... but sometimes I just don't feel like it's a complete answer. 
What I DID really like is that he goes through the pre-amp, and other parts of the amp and explains for a (general) circuit, why all of the components are there, and what changing them will do to the circuit, and does it it in fairly plain english. 
One of the most important things being that he explains the terminology as well - because not everyone knows what a Cathode Follower means right off the bat, or a 'long tailed pair'.
Although he seems to have just discovered 'eddy currents', because he takes every opportunity to bring up rusty transformers and their off-chance of having them.

I have his other book "*Tube Amp talk for Guitarist and Tech*" and while there are a few gems of info in it, I didn't find it as well organized or useful as this book. Would definitely recommend "All About..." over it. 

Other than this, I have Kevin' O'Connor's *The Ultimate Tone*, which is great but a little too heavy for me to read at this juncture (and I'm an engineer) .. or maybe just the writing style. Loads of great info, just hard to chisel it out of the paragraphs and make them stick in my mind.

Also have Gar Gilles* "The How and Why as Gar Sees it"* ... I love Garnet amps, but the book is alll over the place. Maybe like Gar! He'll go from explaining a component in the pre-amp, to jumping to gain mods and then the next chapter is something like power scaling? I found it really hard to follow!
But if you can get passed that, there is a lot of info in it.. he gives you a lot of non-traditional ways of doing things, and explains why. The test-bench projects he recommends for testing values etc. are worth the price of the book ... and if you're a canadian player, you should probably just get it anyway

*Building Valve Amplifiers* by Morgan Jones, is phenomenal... but I left it at a friend's Cottage. Will buy again!
Moreso about hifi than guitar amps, so some of it doesn't *really* apply, but the writings on transformers, and layouts alone are worth twice the price of the book. Many of the chapters are on the actual fabrication of the amp - and he explains how you can go from nothing, to a completed amp with only hand-tools and a messy apartment. I can't recommend this book enough for the newbie


if you guys can make any recommendations, would love to hear what I'm missing out on


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## rhh7 (Mar 14, 2008)

The Guitar Amp Handbook: Understanding Tube Amplifiers and Getting Great Sounds by Dave Hunter

This is my personal favorite.


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## Gizmo (Aug 7, 2008)

Try this one
Modern High-End Valve Amplifiers by Menno van der Veen. (with special attention placed on torroidal transformers....which I have in two guitar amps)
Notice use of the word "valve"....
Thats 'cos it is published by Elektor Magazine in England, a really high end electronics journal.
ISBN 0-905705-63-7


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

Brain f&^%


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## ajcoholic (Feb 5, 2006)

rhh7 said:


> The Guitar Amp Handbook: Understanding Tube Amplifiers and Getting Great Sounds by Dave Hunter
> 
> This is my personal favorite.


Thats what started me into building amps... great book. Still dont understand more than 1/4 of it...

I have three of Gerald Webers books, they are OK but cover a lot of the same stuff in each book.

I have the big "the tube amp" book by Aspin Pitman - tons of data and schematics. its very pricey at most places but Amazon on line has it in stock for $35 or so... half of what the guitar staores are trying to charge!

AJC


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## Macki (Jun 14, 2010)

I wanted to read this one....The Guitar Amplifier Player's Guide - An Instruction and Refence Manual for Musicians. By Dave Zimmerman.....you can youtube his talk that he gave at Boutique Tone. Seems like a very interesting guy and this books sounds like it would be down to earth. I am an EE and have been interested in amps and appreciate starting at the basics. I do like also that he has his degree in EE in nonlinear amps (I think that is what I read).

Boutique Tone - Canada's Boutique Guitar Store : The Guitar Amplifier Player's Guide - An Instruction and Refence Manual for Musicians. By Dave Zimmerman - MAV-AMPBOOK-001


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## WCGill (Mar 27, 2009)

I am an amp book junky. I have just about all of them, not all, but most and the most important, including most of the ones mentioned above. I just have the first 3 Ultimate Tones by Kevin O, but that's enough for me. He's opinionated like Gerald Weber but his knowledge is vast compared to the Texan. How about Radiotron Designer's Handbook, ed. 4, Dave Funk's Tube Amp Workbook, Jack Darr's book (virtually unobtainable), Audio Cyclopedia by Tremaine, Radio Data Book by Boland and Boyce, Tube Lore by Shipley and any RCA and Sylvania tube data books? I've gone through them all and more that I haven't mentioned and hopefully some of that huge database of knowledge has stuck or I'll remember where to look it up. Look for all of these.


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## thehoj (May 12, 2009)

Merlin's books:
How to design valve guitar amplifiers


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## Presto1202 (Dec 8, 2010)

If you guys were going to recommend one book on tube amps for a beginner, someone who just has a basic command of electronics, what would you guys suggest starting with?


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## ajcoholic (Feb 5, 2006)

Dave hunters book is a great place to start...


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## Presto1202 (Dec 8, 2010)

Thanks ajcoholic


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

J.C. Maillet out on Gabriola Island was gracious enough to send me a copy of his 2002 book "Inside Fender and Marshall Tube Amps", which you can find out about here: Welcome to "viva Analog" (scroll down) Very interesting, though slightly more math-heavy, read. Somewhat opinionated, but interesting opinions.

Certainly one of the best things you can do is surround yourself with all the schematics you can, just to see the different ways that certain tasks have been handled over the years and across companies. The Aspen Pittman books are good for that.


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