Free (Kindle UK) Small Signal Audio Design [Sound Engineering DIY Tech Reference]

[ATDrake]

Small Signal Audio Design: Second Edition by Douglas Self, a Cambridge & Sussex University-educated professional audio design engineer, is an accessibly-written reference-quality technical textbook guide to Exactly What It Says In The Title, free courtesy of publisher Taylor & Francis' (the parent company of Routledge, just so you know) Focal Press imprint.

This is actually pretty nifty. The author starts off with a basic introduction to the applicable physics/electrical topics to help ground the Gentle Reader, then moves onto things like the physical properties of various component materials and designs, and then much more complex specific considerations and provides a website link for DIY kits (I think).

And apparently he sprinkles it with Star Trek quotes*, according to the blurb (I didn't run across any during my skim, and apparently you can't search not-yet-indexed books in the Kindle Cloud reader, alas).

Currently free @ Amazon UK, where it's most likely a glitch freebie, since it hasn't dropped anywhere else in the past week. Linkage to the main store for your price-drop check convenience should you want to try nevertheless.

And this has been the selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook of the day.

Because I love it when we get moderately/highly technical/professional academic stuff like this, although it's almost always glitch. Which does make it kind of more special, I guess.

Too bad it's not available to Canadians, because this is probably the one and only freebie I've ever posted in all these years on MR that my dad would actually be interested in reading.

But it seems pretty awesome anyway, and I hope that at least some of you will be able to make use of/learn interesting things from it.

Enjoy!

Description
Learn to use inexpensive and readily available parts to obtain state-of-the-art performance in all the vital parameters of noise, distortion, crosstalk and so on. With ample coverage of preamplifiers and mixers and a new chapter on headphone amplifiers, this practical handbook provides an extensive repertoire of circuits that can be put together to make almost any type of audio system.

A resource packed full of valuable information, with virtually every page revealing nuggets of specialized knowledge not found elsewhere. Essential points of theory that bear on practical performance are lucidly and thoroughly explained, with the mathematics kept to a relative minimum. Douglas' background in design for manufacture ensures he keeps a wary eye on the cost of things. Includes a chapter on power-supplies, full of practical ways to keep both the ripple and the cost down, showing how to power everything.

Douglas wears his learning lightly, and this book features the engaging prose style familiar to readers of his other books. You will learn why mercury cables are not a good idea, the pitfalls of plating gold on copper, and what quotes from Star Trek have to do with PCB design.

Learn how to:

• make amplifiers with apparently impossibly low noise
• design discrete circuitry that can handle enormous signals with vanishingly low distortion
• use humble low-gain transistors to make an amplifier with an input impedance of more than 50 Megohms
• transform the performance of low-cost-opamps, how to make filters with very low noise and distortion
• make incredibly accurate volume controls
• make a huge variety of audio equalisers
• make magnetic cartridge preamplifiers that have noise so low it is limited by basic physics
• sum, switch, clip, compress, and route audio signals

The second edition is expanded throughout (with added information on new ADCs and DACs, microcontrollers, more coverage of discrete op amp design, and many other topics), and includes a completely new chapter on headphone amplifiers.

* I like the author's remarks in the introduction:

"All suggestions for the improvement of this book that do not involve its combustion will be gratefully received.

To the best of my knowledge no supernatural assistance was was received in the making of this book."