Audio Power Amplifier Design

Douglas Self is an amazing teacher, I have read most of his books including some articles in Linear Audio, and this book is no exception to the rule: it is the definite bible on audio amplifier design. What I truly enjoy about this book in comparison with other books on the same subject, is the fact that Douglas self discusses many exiting topologies used in commercial amplifiers as opposed to just giving you idealized models, you can see actual circuits of many amplifiers spanning decades ago and Douglas Self will point out its advantages as well as deficiencies.Something I believe is very important is the fact that Douglas provides real measurements to back up his claims, and all of his measurements are made with higly respected Audio Precision equipment, as opposed to only relying on SPICE, Douglas went throught the trouble of either measuring existing equipment or building his own ideas and testing them out, we are talking about thousands of hours on the bench, that to me is priceless.This is no beginners book, you really need to have a solid analog electronics background to get the best out of this book, I recommend reading other books before as an introduction (such as Cordell's book)..As always, Douglas Self approach to audio design is skeptical and objective, no weird voodoo or subjective opinions take place, which I believe is crucial in audio power amplifier design, it is easy to read books claiming about the "warmth" of a certain amplifier, but whats "warmth" in the first place? to me it can mean some thing, to you another, thus I believe that this cool headed approach Doug takes on amp. design focusing on simplicity, efficiency and low distortion is exactly the way to do it.Douglas writting style is clear and his very subtle humor makes everything easy to read. I believe that in general a bit more math would have been useful to further back up his claims.

If you are really interested in learning about audio in depth then this book is required reading. Mr. Self has put a huge amount of effort into explaining the characteristics of power amplifiers and the key design points. He uses results from actual amplifiers he has built, and computer simulations (Spice), to demonstrate how amplifiers actually work and how the various design decisions affect performance.This is the 6th edition of the book. It is greatly enhanced from the 5th edition (and the 4th Edition for that matter) which I also own. The added material in this edition clearly justifies purchasing the 6th edition. It seems like a whole new book.Mr. Self provides some humor along the way as he provides both high level details and in depth explanations of all phase of power amplifier design. He clearly explains and then demonstrates that it is possible to design an amplifier that provides almost immeasurably low distortion, and meets most any other design requirement, using correctly applied, available technology.The other leading up-to-date book covering audio power amplifiers was written by Bob Cordell and is called: Designing Audio Power Amplifiers. Designing Audio Power AmplifiersI consider Mr. Cordell's book to also be required reading. I put Mr. Self's book slightly ahead of the Cordell volume, mostly due to the measurements of actual circuits and detailed simulations, but since the two authors cover the subject in different ways, it would be best to buy both volumes for a complete view of the field.

I can't express how impressed I am with this book, and with the depth of analysis Douglas Self has put into it. So many books on analog design read like a math text books while missing the point of creating a true feel and understanding of the principles.You can believe or not believe that audibility is predicted by measurements, but Self's perfected designs of the most common architecture achieve a result what would be a wire with gain were it not for the most modern measurement techniques. He doesn't just present theory, but backs it up with real measurements, not just of his designs but of a very large number of highly regarded existing designs. I enjoy building, but more often modifying audio equipment. His analysis opened up a new level of understanding for me.If you do analog design, not just amplifiers, you owe it to yourself to read this book. His approach to optimizing rather than just throwing architecture against the wall is truly enlightening. I understand now how so many of the classic, seemingly advanced amplifier designs are really made to look nice on paper without much analysis of how they compare in the real world to other architectures.

An excellent book on the subject of audio power amp design. Unfortunately far too many errors referencing component designators in Figures and other grammatical errors to warrant 5 stars. Including the wrong schematic that was critcial to the discussion of one chapter.Unfortunately the hifi world seems to be stuck in the dark ages, where specifications, rigorous and repeatable testing and logic are ignored, in favour of non-blind subjective testing, where the performance relates only to the cost of the item. It's refreshing to see that this book does not fall into that category.The power amplifier is broken down into separate sections and analysed in detail, with a view to designing a distortionless and very low noise power amplifier, from 20Hz to 20KHz. Assuming a basic knowledge of electronics, this analysis is clear and easy to follow.The book appears to be written primarily for people in the power amplifier design business, rather than DIYers. With lots of discussion on the cost to performance benefit and other marketing issues.Unfortunately the text contains lots of self-righteous comments and unnecessary bantar that detracts from the othwise excellent details. Though this was amusing at times.