Merlin's Books?

[The Ballzz]

Hi All,
Just wondering about Merlin Blencowe's books.
A) Pre-amp books: Is the second edition the same as the first, but with additions, or are both needed to get a clear understanding?
B) Are there any versions that are available in PDF or other computer viewable formats as well as paper. While I want the paper versions, reading on my computer, with the ability to zoom in/enlarge text, is much easier for this old blind bat to read!

Thanks Guys,
Gene

[Firestorm]

Books are paper. Some info online at his site. The second preamp book is an improvement I'm told, but I only have the first one (pretty great). The power supply book was withdrawn; nothing wrong with it, but Merlin is smarter than it shows. We're all waiting for the power amp book.

[martin manning]

The second edition of the preamp book replaced the first. A few topics were dropped, so those who have the earlier one are happy to keep both. You can get the entire first chapter covering triode gain stages as a .pdf from the Valve Wizard web site. Short summaries of many other circuits are available there too.

[titser_marco]

If you guys were to recommend the sequence of getting the books, how would it look like? Just asking as I am running on a budget so I can only get one book say every quarter.

[Firestorm]

I love Merlin, but get O'Connor's TUT 1, then Blencowe. Your eyes will open.

[harleyboy2112]

As far as computer versions go, I have hard copies and also purchased copies on my ipad through apple.

[titser_marco]

I love Merlin, but get O'Connor's TUT 1, then Blencowe. Your eyes will open.

\


Been considering TUT as well, and the site already provides a sequence of books to read as well.

[Firestorm]

Kevin doesn't tell the whole story, but there is breadth of knowledge. Merlin is an academic (in the best sense of the word) so he explains what and why. Read Aiken online, too. If you get those guys under your belt, you can interpret Weber (sometimes wrong), Torres (mostly wrong), and me (always wrong).

[xtian]

Weber (sometimes wrong), Torres (mostly wrong), and me (always wrong)

That's an awesome signature, right thar.

[Structo]

With me it is a combination of the books mentioned that allows me to glean knowledge from them.

Some books may speak to you better than others.
If you never took electronics or physics classes, it can be a challenge because
most books assume you already have a foundation of knowledge.

The thing to do is build a small library of reference material that you can go
to when you have a question or design idea.

Online is nice, but it's nicer to hold a hard copy of a book and to be able
to flip pages back and forth.

[tubeswell]

Buy them all

[Firestorm]

Buy them all

That!
And think.
Tubes are the most intuitively obvious electronic components because electrons actually flow through them. Caps next because electrons actually build up on one side. Resistors just impede the flow of electrons.

Congratulations. You are now a 1950s electrical engineer!

[titser_marco]

Crystal lattice joke dropping in 3...2...


Kidding. Yeah, I guess it makes sense to have them all but being a corporate learning guy, I'm fond of structuring learning activities in a sequence that makes sense so I'm curious how you guys would do it since you already have gone through Merlin's books. That, and I kinda want to pace my purchases, hehe.

Buy them all

That!
And think.
Tubes are the most intuitively obvious electronic components because electrons actually flow through them. Caps next because electrons actually build up on one side. Resistors just impede the flow of electrons.

Congratulations. You are now a 1950s electrical engineer!

[martin manning]

I would start by reading the Chapter 1 .pdf from Merlin's preamp book online (it's hard to beat free!). That will give you a feel for his style and the degree of understanding needed to start.

Firestorm, you aren't giving '50's engineers nearly enough credit!

[Firestorm]

I would start by reading the Chapter 1 .pdf from Merlin's preamp book online (it's hard to beat free!). That will give you a feel for his style and the degree of understanding needed to start.

Firestorm, you aren't giving '50's engineers nearly enough credit!

That was an overly obscure allusion to the Alice's Restaurant Cookbook: International Cooking - "Sour cream makes it Russian, Tarragon makes it French, garlic makes it good. Congratulations, you are now an international chef!"

The work of '50s electronic engineers (and earlier) was inspiring. Edison discovered (and somehow patented) the flow of electrons between cathode and plate; Fleming showed how modulating the grid changed a diode into an amplifier; by the '50s, engineers had described the cathode as a space charge within the tube, whose position and influence changed depending on the screen voltage (in tetrodes and pentodes). That virtual cathode business would have been 100% understood, except for the advent of the transistor, which sucked all resources into exploration of solid state.

To paraphrase Tom Leher, "It makes you you realize how little you've accomplished to think that when Alan Blumlein was my age, he'd been dead for over 20 years."