Guess what I will be doing over the next few months

[shortfuse]

Reading to understand your posts better

[echuta13]

 Another set of books I would recommend are Merlin's (if you don't already own them): http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/

[G._Hoffman]

I'd say Merlin before KOC.  Not that it will help all that much, but the KOC books are laid out in such a haphazard manner that I find it helpful to have a degree of understanding before you read them so you can actually parse all the details in KOC's books. 


Just my $0.02.


Gabriel

[echuta13]

There also seems to be a bit of redundancy in them as well.. 

[stratele52]

There also seems to be a bit of redundancy in them as well..  

Yes ,
Great book , but very expensive, I have them all

Another great book , very easy to read lots of sketch , one of my best if not the best ( I have almost all the books on the subject)

http://www.garnetamps.com/book.htm

[HotBluePlates]

Reading to understand your posts better

Did you get those from Tubesornothing? If so, I was gonna get them if you didn't.

... the KOC books are laid out in such a haphazard manner that I find it helpful to have a degree of understanding before you read them so you can actually parse all the details in KOC's books.

I'm pretty sure KOC meant the first TUT book to be the last as well. Then he probably got follow-on questions, or wanted to go back and re-address things. So yeah, they're not very sequential.

That said, the complete order of things in RDH3 changed when it reappeared as RDH4. And neither tries to tell you everything about everything, as much as they are simply a reference of all the facts. It can take a long time to wrap your brain around everything they present, because the books seem to assume you've learned the stuff before and are simply going back to jog your memory.

It's an enormous challenge to try to write a book (or series) that comprehensively covers everything you need or might ask. You can cover guitar amps simply, or turn such a project into an encyclopedic series.

[Cups]

I started reading TUT3 as an absolute beginner. I only started understanding the concepts when I started my first kit (a Trinity Tweed) I guess I'm a hands on kind of guy.

Now I have 1-2 and 3 and they're great books - but he certainly doesn't start from the beginning.

I bet out of all of those books 3 will be your favorite. It's just fun to look at the schematics and the projects.

[Gary_S]

Those books will keep you busy for a few years not a few months!!!  I have both of Merlin's books and i'm learning a lot from them. The O'Connor one's are very expensive and there's just too many of them. I couldn't believe the price of them when i saw them. Plus they're not available in the UK so i'd have to import them so that would be a customs charge on top of that.

Not for me, i don't think.

I liked the look of the Fender Bassman book by Mike Kuehnel delving into the circuit comprehensively but again a very expensive book for what you're getting. At those kinds of prices i'd be expecting a hardback copy.

Merlin's books are both hardback and priced reasonably.

For me recently the best education has come from the NEETS course that HBP hipped me to. Not obviously designed particularly for amps, but a wealth of knowledge about electronics in general. I noticed after studying it a lot that, when i went back to Merlin's books, topics that i never quite understood made a lot more sense and i could get my head round them much easier. The Transformer section in Merlin's power amp book being a prime example.

Thanks HBP for the advice to delve into the NEETS stuff, it has been educational beyond belief.  

[alerich]

I have TUT 1. It's a very good resource. Truthfully, as long as I have access to the internet and Google usually I'm good to go. TUT is the only amp book I have purchased. About the same time I started scouring Usenet for amp newsgroup posts. Many may be surprised but at one time alt.guitar.amps was not always the cesspool it is today. 10-15 years ago it was excellent with a host of very competent techs who frequented it. By use of the old Deja News I spent hours every day searching and reading and learning about amps. I owe a lot of my knowledge to guys like Mark Garvin, Randy Aiken and Rich Koerner and they each butted heads with KOC from time to time. After that I started reading forums like this one.

The thing about a book is that they offer you one opinion. Are they right? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe there are several ways to skin that cat sitting on your bench. The only drawback of the Google search is that it sometimes offers many ideas you and you get more confused but that happens just as often to me here in the Hoffman forum. nonetheless, of those were the books advertised in the for sale forum that was good deal. I hope you enjoy them.

[jim]

TUT 1 is the most useful (Building and Modifying).  I just bought TUT 4(the red one) and there is a eye opening treatise about attenuators. Both KOC and Weber need some kind of master index.  It is difficult
to research one item you might be looking for. 

[HotBluePlates]

You're welcome Gary!

I think it sometimes gets lost that if you want to learn about guitar amp electronics, that you have to learn about electronics in general... if you ever want to get past opinion into the nuts & bolts of how to get things done.

... at one time alt.guitar.amps was not always the cesspool it is today. 10-15 years ago it was excellent with a host of very competent techs who frequented it. ...

I can't remember if it was a newsgroup, but I do recall getting on a bulletin board when I first started looking into amps via Prodigy dial-up internet. I recall seeing Mark Baier posting on there explaining what a filter cap was and how he was fine-tuning various things in the amps he was making. That was a bit before Victoria Amps got off the ground.

It was interesting that he seemed to say he was replicating tweed Fender's at the time because they were too expensive to buy, or the model he was really curious about (the 5E7 Bandmaster) was too rare to acquire. For reference, around that time I bought a near-mint '67 Princeton Reverb for $400.

[shortfuse]

Wow lots of comments and opinions all very well represented.  Thank You
Yes HBP I got these from Don.  They went up for sale in the for sale tab here on the forum and I must have stumbled upon them right after they went up.  I had been looking at purchasing some of them for a long time and had several members tell me the sequence in which I should purchase them.  But for the price i got them all for I couldn't resist the purchase.
I have Merlins Preamp book (actually downloaded through I books $12.00) and I got about half way through and I was lost.
I looked at Richard Kuehnel's books but were told by some they were difficult to understand.
I bought Gerald Webers "Understanding Vacuum Tube Guitar Amplifiers" I am a visual guy I like seeing it.  And after reading and building a few amps this DVD actually helped.  Especially when he walks you through the circuits at the end of the DVD.  I think with Merlin's book I need to read it to the end and then go back to the beginning and then maybe it will make more sense to me.
I have started reading the Ready Set Go book, I know a lot of what is in here but learning things and jogging memory also as I go.
Gary and HBP I will have to look into Neets also.  Like alerich said each person that writes a book is subjective and what I have been concentrating on is what is repeated by all, I take that as a group consensus and as Gerald Weber says some things are just written in stone.
To be honest I learn more reading posts right here than in any book.  There are some of you guys on here that are absolutely phenomenal with the help. It is real situations and problems and usually explained in plain English that I can say to my self that's what they were talking about in the book.  And sometimes I read the book and say that's what that guy was saying in his post on the board. 
I can build any amp from a proven schematic.  I have very good building skills I just lack theory and I am determined to improve on that.
I first built a AX84 firefly on a turret board and messed up a lot of stuff, preamp tubes wired backwards ect...  I then built a Hoffman Plexi 50 and it came out great right out of the box, loved that amp (rest my case proven schematic).  I then built a GA5 from Dougs Sch 40 schematic and immediately had a lesson in bias and el84's "thank you Sluckey".  So before I moved on I doubled back fixed up the firefly (I am going to post on that this weekend) and sold it.  Fixed the GA5 by going to a 6V6 because of the plate voltages I had it was the only way to salvage that build at the time.  I was not sure about Zenier's at that time.   Sold it.  Also sold the Plexi 50 because I have my eyes set on a dual channel Marshally style amp.  I will build another Hoffman Plexi 50 with very good iron next time I miss that amp.
All that said I blame each and everyone of you to my amp building addiction.   

[jojokeo]

I have Merlins Preamp book (actually downloaded through I books $12.00) and I got about half way through and I was lost.
I looked at Richard Kuehnel's books but were told by some they were difficult to understand.
I bought Gerald Webers "Understanding Vacuum Tube Guitar Amplifiers" I am a visual guy I like seeing it.  And after reading and building a few amps this DVD actually helped.  Especially when he walks you through the circuits at the end of the DVD.  I think with Merlin's book I need to read it to the end and then go back to the beginning and then maybe it will make more sense to me.
I have started reading the Ready Set Go book, I know a lot of what is in here but learning things and jogging memory also as I go.
To be honest I learn more reading posts right here than in any book.  There are some of you guys on here that are absolutely phenomenal with the help. It is real situations and problems and usually explained in plain English that I can say to my self that's what they were talking about in the book.  And sometimes I read the book and say that's what that guy was saying in his post on the board. 
I can build any amp from a proven schematic.  I have very good building skills I just lack theory and I am determined to improve on that.

This all just takes some time, persistence, and some applied effort. It helps to understand the basics first such as terminology, descriptions, parts/components first. Then it takes some understanding on how they work and work together. Then it takes reading and understanding schematics. Then after all that it takes understanding of how to put it all together in real world working conditions. And finally the troubleshooting and repair side which sort of also borders on understanding design. For newbies getting their feet wet, all of this can be overwhelming. There is no set order of operations when entering into the hobby/business. The predominant theme is go slowly and safely at your own pace. When looking at all of the aspects, it requires many "disciplines" in being a competent designer, builder, restorer, repairman, tweaker, and player also! From Caddy Shack's Carl Spackler, "hey, how 'about a little something for the effort?" Our ultimate reward isn't necessarily monetarily based but rather a lifetime of enjoyment using, playing, hearing, and sharing something created out of our very own efforts by learning & doing.

[Willabe]

This all just takes some time, persistence, and some applied effort. It helps to understand the basics first such as terminology, descriptions, parts/components first. Then it takes some understanding on how they work and work together. Then it takes reading and understanding schematics. Then after all that it takes understanding of how to put it all together in real world working conditions. And finally the troubleshooting and repair side which sort of also borders on understanding design. For newbies getting their feet wet, all of this can be overwhelming. There is no set order of operations when entering into the hobby/business. The predominant theme is go slowly and safely at your own pace. When looking at all of the aspects, it requires many "disciplines" in being a competent designer, builder, restorer, repairman, tweaker, and player also! From Caddy Shack's Carl Spackler, "hey, how 'about a little something for the effort?" Our ultimate reward isn't necessarily monetarily based but rather a lifetime of enjoyment using, playing, hearing, and sharing something created out of our very own efforts by learning & doing.

Well said indeed!


              Brad