Guitar Amplifier Electronics: Basic Theory

Very thorough technical intro to electronics theory as applied specifically to vacuum tube guitar amps. I’ll reread this multiple times.

A little book, crammed to the brim with easily understandable, well written explanations of all things electronic as it pertains to guitar amps and their inner workings. Kuehnel's new book (2018) was a home run for me from the very first page. I have no formal education in electronics, so every time I pick up a book I learn something new, but this one just explained things better and clearer, with less math. "Chapter 1: Electronics Fundamentals" alone was worth the price of the book for me. The basic theory needed to fully understand the inner workings of a tube amp are explained but the secret sauce is, of course, the online calculators at the publishers website. They are fantastic! Kuehnel gives you the theory and explains how to use the tools to take control of your tube amp circuits in ways that may surprise you. Tubes, pre-amps, tone stacks,power amps, transformers, phase inverters, negative feedback, power supplies and more, all finally explained in a way I can understand AND with online tools that reveal how components in your circuit impact the performance of your amp.I've been an electronics hobbyist and amp builder for years and I have basic test equipment and a dedicated work bench. I have been reading books on electronic theory and amp building for many years - I've read a lot of books! I wish this one was around when I started. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! A++

Very well done and easy to read trio of books. Clear examples and step by step guides make learning the process easy, and while there is a lot of math involved the online calculators help take some of the pain out!Once you finish with these three, if you find yourself wanting to get even deeper into amp design I recommend Mr. Kuehnel's other 2 books that go into even more depth on Pre-amps and Power amps. But be prepared for engineering level math!

After you've ready everything on Valve Wizards website, it's time to buy some books. This is one of the essentials. However, if you are a non-engineer, you will probably need to read several sections a few times over. This book is extremely well written and although it starts off pretty basic, it gets more complicated as you go along. But that's the nature of the business. If you want to learn about guitar amp circuit design rather than just copying old circuits, this book is a place to start.

I bought this because I enjoy reading technical book on tube amps. It seems pretty good but it is really the basics (Hey, that is in the title of the book so accurate advertising!).

I did have to read it through twice before everything started "clicking", but I've now moved on to this author's more advanced books. I now have a much firmer understanding of what's going on under the hood of the vintage tube amp designs I'm building.

The best explanation of how guitar amps work that I have found yet.Buy all the books in this series, and you will not be disappointed!

I am in the process of learning how to design and build my Vacuum Tube Electric Guitar Amp and was needing a book that was more at my level and was very informative and would give me some great ideas on how to design my amp from the input to the speaker and so far I have read half of the book and have a hard time putting it down. The author seems to explain things simple and logical enough to understand and follow. This was a good investment and at a nice price.

Es buen libro aunque esta muy resumido, los calculadores son buenos pero en el calculador de la polarización de triodo a veces hay que estar probando a manera de prueba y error.

Somewhat disappointed with this book. The explanations are not nearly as good as Merlin Blencowe's, and they get dragged down with examples that find the reader flicking back and forth over pages to reflect back to where a particular calculated number came from. Adding reminders in parentheses after a number from an earlier calculation is used again would be very useful.Sometimes subjects were mentioned before being properly introduced, such as AC load lines and ripple filters.Load lines and valve performance graphs suffer similarly. While key numbers from the graphs are discussed, I found I was constantly staring at the graphs to mentally evaluate where those numbers came from, be that a coordinate or a range along one axis between two coordinates or a plot along a line between two coordinates. A little more annotation on the graph (or again more explanation in the prose) would go a long way to reducing the time needed to visualise and thus graph the point being made.Plots and diagrams would benefit from figure numbers, to which the prose refers. I found it difficult (e.g. Pages 171-2) to know which of the several text-wrapped graphs was being discussed.The derivation of particular values (e.g. For resistances and capacitances) in the example circuits was one of the best features of the book. This allows the reader to design his own circuits instead of just emulating.Range of subjects is good, better than Blencowe.