Not the best solid state book


It's become a national obsession, for some reason, to read-or flip
through-this book and either praise it to high heaven or declare it
better printed on soft, absorbent paper so that it would have some
utility in the world. I'm not going to do either one, because it's
neither terribly good nor terribly evil.

If you want to cobble up some relatively inexpensive utility grade
audio amplifiers at a somewhat lower cost than buying them-trading off
your time, any warranty, resale, et al-which, it seems to me, is your
right, this book provides schematics, PCB layouts, and enough
commentary to get you going. Is that so rotten?

However, it doesn't connect the theory and practice very well. And it
does contain a lot of opinion that is biased to some degree (isn't
opinion always?) and marginally incorrect statements seemingly
calculated to irritate the high end crowd. (Pro recording studios do
use a lot of tube equipment, and not for coloration: almost all opera
recordings are done on Neumann tube mics, for example.)

I would pick any of Doug Self's books or several others over this one
if building these specific amps were not your primary goal. It's a
hobby project book, period.

And, as a matter of interest, transistors-bipolar or FET-are not "more
neutral" or "accurate" or linear than vacuum tubes. They are
(relatively) low impedance devices and they come in N and P flavors,
which means no output transformer is needed and therefore more, much
more, negative feedback can be used to improve bandwidth and THD
measurements. Alas, NFB is a tradeoff and more is not necessarily
better-which is what the real pros started figuring out in 1972 (yes,
the storied Russ Hamm!) and the 'subjective' backlash started. So,
Slone is really being a little disingenuous,and he knows it...but then
again, so are the high end tube vendors, because most of them are
selling a sizzle that's out of proportion to the steak, and one that's
often crudely built beneath the pretty machined front panel at that.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but our entire system of commerce is
built on the proposition that three lefts do.
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