Bottle Builder

This book is intended to be a hands-on recipe collection of my amplifier designs over more years than I care to remember. There is little emphasis on the scientific explanations nor discussions and the designs can be built by anyone if the instructions are followed. You are about to embark upon an endeavor from which there is no return; some audio aficionados insist, that sound lost during digitalization is present in the grooves of a vinyl record. They just may be right: Life is analog. The same aficionados, this time aided and abetted by audio desperados, equally persist in believing, that only with tubes the absolute Nirvana in sound reproduction can be achieved. Who am I to contradict and this is what this book is all about. The first time you have enjoyed the spectacular results of your homemade tube audio you have also shared the Opium known as HiFi with the rest of us addicts. You have been cautioned. Several of my esteemed fellow writers have indeed published well-documented scientific documents, designs and opinions based on fact and I am not knocking their contributions. The more successful designs are compiled in this book ranging from extreme high fidelity to instrument amplifiers producing the desired level of harmonic distortion coveted by my fellow musicians and myself. Music and HiFi appreciation is very much a combination of basic abilities and learning. Musicians and professional listeners like conductors and studio engineers do not utilize the same part of the brain for listening as non-musicians and the average layman do. This is fact. Analytic listening is an acquired skill that can be learned. Some of the gurus of the past like D.T.N. Williamson, Stanley White and other pillars of society did not always get their math right and some classic designs could use a little improvement. A few like Peter Walker (Acoustical Quad) had the ability to think out of the box during a time, when HiFi was buzz-word and not really defined, standards were defined by every individual manufacturer and loudspeakers pretty much designed by instinct (pre-Thiele/Small). Revision of some of the classic designs is part of this book too and a product of my affection for perfect sound reproduction and ultimate performance of electric instruments. This is not an audio bible, a lecture on gospel or a revelation. You are already past that since you read this. You are tired of commercial products and seek salvation I humbly show you the path to it.