Patrick Turner wrote:
Today's ppl don't need books any more to build a decent amp. They just search around to find the best source of info according to their uneducated, inexperienced and incompetent background... (snip)
Well I think you are half right there, even though unnecessarily pessimistic. There are lots of amateurs starting out and the simple blogs and "picture howtos" are useful to get a beginning. But then there are also great collections like this, that takes a bit longer to get through:
http://www.tubebooks.org/technical_books_online.htm
When I first got interested in restoring and building tube audio in the late 90s, I learned so much by going through the RAT archives and various homepages (mostly gone now, though). Armed with that, and my highschool maths and physics, it was (and still is) a fun learning slope to get sound and then (wow!) GOOD sound out of various old surplus tubes and transformers. But I eventually did get the books too, including RDH4.
I work a lot in teaching today and it is sad how few young people I see actually take the time to read long books when there are shorter and simpler sources of information (and gossip) that they can find online. I think this will be a growing problem in the future. But I still think books are the more longlasting medium and well worth writing.
Martin
The trouble is that ppl start wanting an amp without wanting to be bored by learning that will only be used once. They see what is possible at home and charge ahead because it avoids the high retail prices, but all the while feeling they must get it done by lunchtime because they have terrible trouble being their own servant and being a husband and father and earning a living.
But RDH4 has excellent advice in many areas of audio. Each and every sentence is carefully crafted to contain as much info as possible, so anyone reading it and implementing schematics needs to read more than just the bits about complete amplifiers etc. All the basics need to be understood, but that takes time and nobody wants to learn.
But RDH4 amp schematics are all a bit out of date. You can do so much better that amps described in RDH4. Many bloaks aged about 80 or over tend to think there can be no improvements on sacred RDH4 texts, and its like they enjoy being stuck in the past when they were young and invincible, and rather stupid just like all the youth of all generations.
Last night I watched a show on TV about complete restoration of a 1952 Mk-1 Land Rover. Not a bad version of a Jeep :-). Not a bad item whichever way you appraise it. But really only best in the very rough. A bunch of guys did the work which took many weeks and must have cost maybe $30,000. Everything was kept exactly standard, using 1952 techniques and a few very old giza experts, so no mods, and mods to something like that is sacrelidge, plus mods start a string of related changes that easily double restoration costs. Can better be done? sure can, but costs. But I guess ppl could fit better seats, a radio, and make life slightly more comfy.
We think we are smart in 2014. But nobody has 3D printed an old Landy - yet - or a Quad-II.
And if I wanted something simple and cheap like a simple electric car, I can't have it because of add-ons and crap, and they are more expensive, so when ppl aim for simplicity now, its marketing suicide.
Much of the world has gone soft in the head about priorities.
But petrol prices can only rise.
In future, maybe 20 years, the whole motor industry will go electric, and electric cars will get cheaper, and solar and wind will take over from dinosaur coal power stations, we can charge the car batteries or those used for class A amps all so cheaply. Maybe digital PWM amps become listenable. Seems some of the digital sources are better than ever before.
Patrick Turner.