Reddit mentions: The best acoustic engineering books

>If you like your Klipsch then I'm happy for you.

I did for a time but your shared happiness is much appreciated.

>Personally, I wouldn't spend money on them. Yes, their efficient. They practically use a megaphone for the tweeter housing (60°x90° tactrix tweeter). They SHOULD be efficient. At high volume they are incredibly harsh across the entire line.

Thr first is totally your prerogative of course but that last part's actually not correct either by measurement or review.

>But that's expected from aluminum dome tweeters. Listening fatigue sets in before a movie finishes and the subs are big and sloppy.

I never had any such fatigue after a movie with mine in an untreated but slightly dead room albeit I dont listen near Reference level. I had other issues but mine weren't the newer RP series.There's a well known subwoofer manufacture and designer who posts here often recommending one of those big and sloppy Klipsch sub's but in general I agree they arent the best value sub you can buy.

>But if you're a person who doesn't take into account Sensitivity Levels and Wattage required to reach 110/115dB at or before reference levels and you're just gonna throw any old 125 watt receiver into your system because it has enough HDMI ports then Klipsch are definitely for you. They pair with run of the mill AVR's like peanut butter and jelly.

Almost any 8Ohm nominal speaker with a < or = to 87dB sensitivity fit that peanut and butter analogy assuming an average seating distance from the mains. Plus actual Reference level was never meant for the home environment which is why -10dB is more the norm in the home for maximum playback levels not 0dB Relative.

>I prefer smoother, silk dome tweeters. You can listen for much longer at high volume without the listening fatigue.

I prefer a ribbon style but I also like my silk dome bookshelf speakers.

>I would rather buy less efficient, sealed cabinet speakers and dump 200+ watts into them. Why would I want a hole in my box attempting to help my low quality drivers hit a frequency range they don't play well when I could just buy better quality speakers?

Or better yet buy a dedicated subwoofer with its own built in amp that can be strategically placed in room in pairs to minimize nodes? Very few if any tower speakers are actually full range. Location and Hoffman's Iron law is a major part of it as well.


>Ceramic drivers? Great! Let's add resonance to my audio. No thanks.

They are composite aluminum drivers dude😕. Infinity also uses a similar design as well with no resonances. Your welcome.

>Ported 10", 12", 15" subs? I'm good thanks. Again, gimme a sealed cabinet, high excursion 8" active + 8" passive paired with a 1500 watt amp. I want bass that'll make my eyes jiggle not a system that just rumbles through all the action scenes. Bass should be able to switch from 'tight and punchy' to 'earthquake' as the director intended.


If that setup is in your closet or a sealed breakfast nook/work station then yeah I'm ok with my eyes jiggling but put that into a 4000^3 open concept space and it's a vibrating footrest/massager not a sub. You can also design a ported subwoofer with those same director desired effects. It just takes good engineering and quality components. Luckily I have ported sub's designed by an Electrical Engineer who loves both movie and accurate music reproduction. One of the larger movie mastering studios use several of his sub designs for the audio.

>I guess if I could buy some speakers without breaking the bank I would be looking at DynAudio towers and Sunfire subwoofers. Atlantic Technology is another brand worth looking at that you won't need to refinance your home for.

One of those 2 speakers is dealer only and the other specializes in studio monitors and don't seem very inexpensive for even a a pair of books but I might be missing some Google fu on that one if you can point me to a more affordable pair of the DA's. As for Sunfire sub's.

>But again, if you're enjoying your Klipsch speakers I'm happy for you.

As I'm sure they are for you and your overpriced foot massager of a sub😉.

>After working in A/V for 23 years and listening to everything from Bose to Vienna Acoustics and everything in between I like to think I have developed an experienced listening ear. Unfortunately there will always be a die-hard fan out there that believes everything sounds good on Klipsch.

Steve Guttenbergof CNET and Mark Fleischmann of Sound and Vision have been doing this a long time as well. There are always die hard fans with every speaker make. I think lots of things sounded good with my Klipsch's but some things I cared about equally didn't.

You have justified your logic, but, with all due respect, it is flawed. It reminds me of a joke about a scientist that taught a fly to fly on demand, and observed that when he removed it's wings, it went deaf, because it didn't fly on demand anymore!

The human brain is tricked very, very easily. In 1910, Muzak was invented: phycological based music systems! If you have any doubt on how easily the brain can be tricked, PLEASE search for audio myths on reddit and watch and listen to the videos. It will blow your mind, if you believe what you wrote. They demonstrate just how easily the brain is tricked. In fact, you can be talked into hearing things! Fact. The softwares we are speaking of, such as Sonnarworks, measures reflections on a spectral analytic basis, as well as time differences, as well as phase and inversions, natural comb filtering and much, much, much more.

It does, indeed negate the effects of the room, actually better than room treatment, in most cases, so your speakers are indeed sounding as if they are in an anechoic chamber.

>On top of that there is a frequency curve and we perceive different frequencies at different volumes.

It does take into effect the fact that human ears are most sensitive at 1000 hz and the rollouts of the human ear. For headphones, they go as far asking for you to send in your cans, as they measuring each side of YOUR headphones, for they differ, it is that accurate. Andrew Shepps ( if you into audio engineering, you know his pedigree - If you don't, you should) swears by it, as more and more engineers are, and they are in fact using it to mix now - grammy winning mixers using it and swearing by it - I'm not second guessing Schepps and his golden ears. I'm not going to challenge the incredible work Sonnarworks engineers either.

>Throw a digital room correction into the mix and you are now lying to your brain and it can no longer tell fact from fiction.

This is baseless, my friend. High end home theater has been doing this for well over decades with wondrous results, in high end home theater, I'm talking the custom stuff, a point source mic is put at every listening point in the room to correct the room. The before and after is stunning - jaw dropping. The consumer's brain doesn't 'fix it'. Even regular consumer home theater, best buy stuff, has Audyssey MultEQ XT32, LFC, Sub EQ HT, Dynamic Volume and Dynamic EQ. Sonnarworks has taken it to pro level.

>our brain can perceive this room correction and correct for it in the mixing process, because at least your brain is hearing the truth

Our brains lie to us, our brains lie to us every day, for it tries to quickly piece together bits of sounds, and sights, for that matter, and quickly try to come up with something that makes sense. i.e. the man on the moon syndrome: our brains try to do it's best to create a whole picture out of pieces. It does the same to audio. I'm sure you've seen optical illusions. They work extraordinarily well! Sonic illusions do too!

>Your brain can perceive this room correction and correct for it in the mixing process, because at least your brain is hearing the truth.

Now we're getting ridiculous. If this were true, than why do all, as in every one, without exception, of the best mixing and mastering engineers treat their rooms? Because their brains cannot decode the complex array of waves bouncing all over a room.

>Throw a digital room correction into the mix and you are now lying to your brain and it can no longer tell fact from fiction.

Where are you getting this from? You just pulled the wings off the fly! I'm not sure if you can tell fact from fiction, as you are writing baseless fiction, posting it as fact. Are you Trump???

>Digitally correcting a room is imperfect and leads to worse results than the original uncorrected signal.

This is America, you are certainly entitled to your own opinions, but nobody is entitled to their own facts.

I mean no disrespect, but you are misguiding the OP with baseless nonsense. If I understand you right, your point is, the more you do to correct for ones room's imperfections, the worse sound you are going to get. by extension of that theorem, no room should be treated in any way, physically or electronically.

Look, I'm usually a really nice, helpful guy on Reddit. I rarely will call someone out. But your uneducated statements are wrong, on many levels. They are baseless, incorrect, misguiding and it's not a very nice thing to do to the OP and others who might think what you are posting is fact. At least the first poster started his post with, "this is simply my observation.....".

Now I'll give you that the brain can 'learn' headphones or speakers, and even a room, (to a very small degree if at all). You can only to an extent on, all of them. The issue is, we are never finished learning them....ever. That's why we listen to our mixes on different transducers in the studio, headphones, the car, and as many different places, because we are never sure! We never ever fully learned a pair of speakers or even a room with room treatment!

Please read the following and get back to me:.

"Nonlinear-acoustics" this is a good primer, and a freebee

“Sound Reproduction: Loudspeakers and Rooms”,Floyd E. Toole, This is a Classic

“Acoustics and Psychoacoustics”, This is advanced

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Mr-Mud

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Set up the guitar so it's coming in orange... In general, yes, this is what you're doing to all inputs. An example of when not to do this might be if you know a musician will get hit with adrenaline and play twice as loud during the show as they might at soundcheck.

A caveat: signal coming in nice and hot at your preamp will NOT optimize your signal to noise ratio if you compensate by turning your output faders way down. This still means your PA will amplify however much Johnson noise is contributed by your mixer. Run your faders at unity, but turn down your PA if necessary. I know I've said it before but so many people refuse to follow this practice that it makes my head spin.

Methinks you went to school for this... Nope! My formal training in sound amounts to a two-day lecture on system optimization using Smaart.

I work in IT, so part of this is very similar to what I do. Awesome! I'm working on my Network+ certification right now. Being able to set up a reliable LAN for your PA control/monitoring is a requirement for professionals these days. I rarely put more than 20 devices on network, but I want to make sure I'm ready for the phone call asking me to do something ten times bigger. A lot of IT people I know (my father among them) are fantastic autodidacts thanks to a career of keeping up with the newest technology, so you likely have what it takes if you're interested enough to put in the work here.

Are there online resources for system optimization? Well, yes, there are always online resources. I'm sure there are some regulars on this sub who can direct you to some, but I can't offhand. Personally, and for most people you'd ask, the best resource for this is Bob McCarthy's book on the subject. Not an online resource, but you'd be selling yourself short if you didn't read it from the man who started it all.

It sounds like you are looking at building a pair of speakers.

You need to buy the latest version of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason/dp/1882580109

And read it front to back. Twice. It will answer many of your questions; it's well worth the price. I studied the first edition way way back.

Parts Express and Madisound are fine for parts.

Expensive? Let's put this in perspective. How many hours would it take you to build as good a set of cabinets as you can buy for $130 each on Parts Express? I assume that's what you're looking at. Trust me, unless you're a woodworker (or don't care what they look like) the cost in time is worth WAY more than that to get a good cabinet.

Want to 'cheat'? Get yourself a pair of cabinets from a thrift store or garage sale -some old pair with walnut veneer that are heavy and maybe have blown drivers. Seriously. You can ditch the drivers, add some material inside the cabinet to reduce the volume to what you need, put in a new front plate and drivers, and oil up that old walnut and you're in business.

What makes a speaker $10 and one $200? Engineering and quality construction and performance. Bear in mind that you reach a point of diminishing returns with drivers; you might get 95% of the performance of a $200 woofer with one that only costs $150. Is that extra 5% worth the cost?

Check out this man's work:

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/

Engineers don't come any finer than this man, he's amazing. Read everything he writes and check out his projects.

What you need to do to make your project sound good is do tons and tons of reading and research into what others have done. Find projects that have been built and refined and are known to be successful. Build one of those first. Remember, your time is valuable. You could waste a lot of money and time on something that sounds disappointing.

I built some speakers and subwoofers (more suited to DIY for beginners than 2-3 way designs) and came to realize that it's a mix of sound engineering and art. And lots of time.

Good luck!

Well, the guy was not a real pro...

Like I said, it seems that you look more for feedback than for learning anything - there are enough free resources out there to learn anything.

Tutorials:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEjOdqZFvhY like this - it looks cheesy, but is most informative full course on youtube

Channels of plugin companies like Fab filter, Waves, Izotope etc.

Many genre producers have posted breakdowns of their tracks on youtube...

I suggest getting some stems of released tracks and analysing them.

https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Audio-Concepts-Practices-Tools/dp/1138859788/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540366561&sr=1-1&keywords=mixing+audio&dpID=41e%252BBcVrTZL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Btw, for the price of something like a berklee course you can get an album mixed in a "pro" studio (considering that you are noone, they shouldn't charge much - something like 100 usd per song).

I suggest focusing on the your music, you will get more from a composition course - see Avicii's early tracks were dogshit in terms of mixing, but they were good musically and later he could afford way better mixing engineers to do all the technical work. (From what I've heard, even the best mix won't get your posted songs to become excellent.)

BTW, many EDM songs are just layers upong layers of compression to get it loud, which is considered a bad mix. If you just want to get loud, learn more about limiters, multiband compression and clippers, and saturation.

Hi, system tech here, bit of a pet topic for me.

• As bustedmustard (ha!) mentioned, Bob McCarthy's book is hands down the best and most complete resource for this. Bob has probably done more to advance the state of knowledge of this field more than anyone else alive so definitely start there. This is truly the system tech bible. Definitely get the 3rd edition though, as it has been completely rewritten and contains a lot more new stuff. It's not like a math text where they just rearrange the graphics and print a new one. As the knowledge develops, so does Bob's book.
  
• Merlijn Van Veen was a major influence on Bob's 3rd edition, and is probably the #2 guy in the world in optimization after Bob. Read his website and sign up for his newsletter. He has a lot of current research going on in the area of directional sub arrays and measurement techniques. His stuff frequently pops up in Live Sound International and on ProSoundWeb, so keep an eye out there as well. He's got a great article on understanding Impulse Response coming out in the October issue. He recently got hired by Meyer Sound, who are on the forefront of developing array theory, so I expect to see even greater things from him.
  
• Can't ignore the great Howard Page. He's notable for being one of the guys who tunes his PA perfectly flat, as opposed to a bit of a tilt to match the spectrum of music. I wouldn't say it's a debate but it is a bit of a matter of opinion. He's a great LSI Roundtable asking a bunch of guys about tilting / sub bump.
  
• Lastly I'm willing to answer any questions you have...array theory is not something I often get to talk about with people who actually want to hear it :D Glad you're interested. I'm considering putting together some sort of webinar on it. That's about as far as I've gotten with the idea.
  
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The mixing part is the same. If you are solely the FOH mixer, and you don't want to be in charge of the bigger picture, you have no concerns - just make it sound good and know the consoles you are working on. The system tech is there to make sure that the rig sounds good everywhere in the room, and the PM and riggers are there to make sure it is run and hung safely and efficiently.

If you want to PM on bigger rigs like that, you need to start learning the details of all those people's jobs - not necessarily so you can tell them what to do, but so that you can spot safety issues and inefficiencies, and work hand-in-hand with them to meet your goals.

Here's a good book to start on power: https://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Entertainment-Electrician-Technician-Richard/dp/0415714834

And here is a good book on audio systems: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415731011/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I haven't read this one on networks yet, but it's probably my next read...maybe others can chime in on wether it is a good one.

https://www.amazon.com/Show-Networks-Control-Systems-Entertainment/dp/0692958738/ref=asc_df_0692958738/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312115090752&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=449842820588414772&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9061129&hvtargid=pla-415287733133&psc=1

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And of course, nothing beats experience, so weasel your way into bigger jobs and watch what everyone is doing.

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Speakers:

• Linkwitz Lab
  
  
• Zaph|Audio
  
  
• Troels Gravesen
  
  
• Paul Carmody
  
  
• Music and Design
  
  
• Loudspeaker Design Cookbook
  
  
• Parts Express Forum
  
  
• Pass Labs DIY Audio
  
  Amplifiers and other goodies:
  
  
• Bottlehead
  
  
• Pete Millett's DIY pages
  
  
• Transcendent Sound
  
  
• Morgan Jones' books
  
  Morgan Jones will get you into building with tubes, but also check the books from Bruce Rozenblit at Transcendent. For free books, Pete Millett has a lot of them at his site. I recommend Norman Crowhurst's books for an excellent intro for laypeople.
  
  If you want components, you can get resistors, capacitors, etc. from Digikey, Mouser, Newark, Redco, and Antique Electronic Supply.
  
  For speaker supplies, look to Madisound, Speaker City U.S.A. and Parts Express. Madisound and Parts Express sell kits, so you can knock off a build without tools.
  
  There's a lot more, but this will give you things to chew over for a few weeks at least. Please come back and ask here if you want advice or need help with anything.

For mixing, as already mentioned: Mixing Engineer's Handbook (Bobby Owsinski), Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio (Mike Senior) and also Mixing Audio (Roey Izhaki).

For mastering: Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science (Bob Katz)

And here are some great books that are not strictly about mixing, but which are very insightful about music production in general:

• Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (Geoff Emerick). The story of The Beatles's main engineer during their studio era (1966-1969), fascinating stuff.
  
  
• Recording Unhinged: Creative and Unconventional Music Recording Techniques (Sylvia Massy). If you are not familiar with this awesome lady, look her up.
  
  
• Behind the Glass - Top Record Producers Tell How They Craft the Hits (Howard Massey). A collection of interviews with some of the best record producers.

At least read Why your first speaker should be a proven design. If your goal is not to embark on speaker design as a hobby, but to build one pair of kick-ass speakers for personal use, build a kit.

Now if your goal is to learn speaker design, go for it. Here's a book that's frequently recommended. This is a "read a book" topic, not an ask on Reddit and then do some google searches topic.

I'd like to suggest that you go with an active crossover. A miniDSP will allow you to do a lot of tweaking of your crossover without spending a ton of money on different passive components that you won't use. Once you have finalized on something you like you can always build a passive equivalent and use the miniDSP for your next project.

Two very classic books. They're a touch dated, but acoustical physics haven't changed much.

Start with this one: amazon.com/Designing-Building-Testing-Speaker-Projects

Then read this: amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason

If you get through those a couple times, and muck around with the included (ancient) software, you'll be ready to build a damn clean set of speakers. And a very good start for all the bits and parts is: parts-express.com It's totally worth the work. Have fun!

Hi /u/breyvinclaw - and welcome to the world of digital filmmaking! I would spend $15 and download [The Location Sound Bible] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ATOUXBI/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ATOUXBI&linkCode=as2&tag=battleforthew-20) - or, if that's too much, I'd spend $8 for ["Roll Sound" - A Practical Guide for Location Audio] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004HO5USC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004HO5USC&linkCode=as2&tag=battleforthew-20) [Referral Links].

These books will save you a lot more money than they cost.

Good luck!

Bill

Jeff Bagby has a good excel spreadsheet with baked-in formulas. However, it's difficult to use unless you have a good base understanding of what you're doing. Some good books to get you started are the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook and Speaker Building 201.
Keep in mind that it is absolutely necessary to have measurement equipment if you want to design anything and be able to point out what is wrong. Even if you have perfect pitch, actually quantifying what you're hearing in a speaker is really hard to do, and honestly can probably only come from lots of experience listening and then measuring to be able to recognize what is off.

Still, I recommend you just build an existing design.

It is merely a derivative work. The original (AFAIK) appears in Bob Cordell's very fine (audio power amplifier book), where he shows that AC mains transformers ("power transformers") have an extremely tight linear relationship between weight and VA-rating. Standing upon the shoulders of this giant, it was a pale and puny improvement to change the regression abscissa from {transformer weight} to {amplifier weight}. But thank you for the kind message of support!

This book is really great for mixing. Currently making my way through it. It is very dense and thorough


This book has been recommended to me a lot for mastering. A very good producer told me this was the standard for wanting to learn proper mastering techniques. I haven’t read it yet

Definitely Sound Systems: Design and Optimisation by Bob McCarthy

That being said, few things can substitute spending time on the job with someone that has a really good understanding and experience - this is first prize. No amount of book knowledge can really sub for it.

You have rolled the high pass up to 335Hz @ 12dB per octave. Good, Let's get that whole low end spectrum out of there!

Next, you have a 9dB cut at 300hZ, just in case that roll off to 355hz didn't cover it all.

You are, at this point, either mic'ing Darth Vader ,Marsellus Wallace, or a Moog but want none of that "Anything below 1kHz" spectrum. You have taken the rumble, the low end, the woofy and the honky-ness out of their voice.

Next you have a couple of notch filters at a 6 & 9dB reduction with a tight Q, probably to stop feedback. I'd imagine you pulled these back this far to make sure you had no feedback problems. I'd bet -3dB would work just fine. If it is for tone shaping and not feedback problems, you really aren't hearing that result due to the tight Q.

Lastly, you have a 9dB boost, 9 friction' Decibels! Holy hell, does this guy sing in to a pillow as a pop filter? 9 dB's, maybe a little bit of overkill. Oh who am I kidding, 9dB's of gain is total overkill or your mic is a piece of crap.

I could try to explain to you why you are most likely having to gain up the mic, why were pushing the fader to +8, just trying to get it in to the mix but what I'd really love to explain is how you ruined the phase of this signal. I'd also imagine that if you had 3 more sets of PEQ that they would also be fully engaged, knocking out more pesky frequencies.

Maybe your FOH / Monitors graph is all pulled out or not being used at all, I could see either happening here.

Problems I see:

• You are trying too hard with this channel, you really are!
  
  
• Over EQ'd to say the least
  
  
• Signal is shot to hell
  
  
• or your mic sucks.
  
  Solutions:
  
  
• Just go back to flat at this point
  
  
• OK, HPF to maybe 100-120Hz
  
  
• Notch out 350-400hz, medium Q, maybe 2-3dB
  
  
• Don't turn it up until it feeds back and try to fix it, turn it up, if it feeds back, just turn it down a little.
  
  This is my recommendation, my junior engineers have the same situations pop up. Less really is more…usually.
  
  Recommended Reading
  
  
• Sound System Engineering
  
  
• Sound Systems: Design and Optimization
  
  
• The Sound Reinforcement Handbook
  
  The first two are text books to say the least, you will read them, not really understand them, read them again, catch a little bit, put them away, read them again and slowly start understanding it. I have had these books for years and get as much from them each time as a good novel. The third book is super simple but still awesome essential information.
  
  TLDR
  Start over, Turn it down.
  
  Yeah, this is a TLDR, but you really need to read some of this every now and then. Your ears fool your brain, and so can your eyes.
  
  

The specs for the drivers are listed on the sites you linked to. For the woofer, they recommend 0.79 cubic ft.
I would cross them over well above the resonant frequency of the tweeter to make sure you can get the crossover steep enough.

If you really want to get into designing speakers I recommend picking up a copy of the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook by Vance Dickason.

For the technical stuff Douglas Self's books are great. Audio Engineering Explained, Self on Audio, The Design of Active Crossovers, Small Signal Audio Design.

You will NEVER learn everything. I guarantee it.

This book is a great place to start on speaker design.

Kit speakers are a fun construction project but if you really want to learn, design your own from scratch. It will consume hundreds of hours of your time to do it well.

> BTW, that wiki song structure article is a mess

Agreed. I linked to that wiki article without even really looking. Personally, I like the following books that go into a lot more detail in regards to production and EDM:

• Music Theory for Computer Musicians
  
• Composition for Computer Musicians
  
• Harmony for Computer Musicians
  
• Dance Music Manual
  
• The Drummers Bible
  
• Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices, and Tools
  
• Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers
  
  All the above are solid books.

That's like asking "how many different ways can you prepare, cook, and present a steak dinner".

One good read if you are curious in the "loud speaker design cook book" https://www.amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason/dp/1882580109

I remember literally wearing the cover off of that book back in the olden days..:)

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-Alignment/dp/0415731011

I have not read this edition, but the previous was great.

Thanks, I'm actually currently reading Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices, and Tools.

Any feedback on what I could do to improve the mix? Did anything sound off in particular?

Books wise, when I started from nowhere I used Robert Harley's, "The Complete Guide to High-End Audio" and it was very useful for me to bootstrap.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-High-End-Acoustic-Engineering/dp/0978649311/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325027596&sr=8-1-spell

It's difficult to recommend anything as most commercial publications are full of voodoo like expensive cables and power conditioners.


That said, I enjoyed Robert Harley's The Complete Guide to High-End Audio https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978649362 even though it's guilty of the same. It still gives a good overview and explains how things work together.

Recording Studio Design. Philip Newell

Acoustic Absorbers and Diffusers. Cox/D'Antonio

Room Acoustics. Heinrich Kuttruff

Sound System Engineering. Davis/Patronis.Jr/Brown

Home Recording Studio. Rod Gervais

Master Handbook of Acoustics. F.Alton Everest

Some are heavy on the acoustic theory some are more practical but all really good resources. I'd also second the John Sayers forum.

I found this to be a great introductory book that explains all the basics:

The Complete Guide to High-End Audio 5th Edition by Robert Harley.

Here in PDF form is the table of contents.

If you really want to get into audio electronics design, I would pick up a book called Small Signal Audio Design. It's long, and it's technical. But it will be a wealth of information for a very long time. https://www.amazon.com/Small-Signal-Audio-Design-Douglas/dp/0415709733/

> Then I have to spend time relearning to get somewhere, then I get busy with other stuff, spend a month away from the bench, and when I return, I have no idea how to bias the damn transistor again lol. It's so discouraging.

Perhaps the problem lies in not knowing why. I've spent 15 years or so, mostly as a hobbiest, learning what a BJT does. I still have active questions about how they work. There's loads of information on the internet about how to use them, but virtually none on how they operate, few looks into the intuition needed to be comfortable with scribbling a sub-circuit down on paper and having some idea whether or not it does what you want it to.

I frequently wonder if most of the information I come across is from someone who understands just enough to present the efforts of others without glaring mistakes, that they don't have any idea what's going on.

I can't be much help with digital circuitry, but for analog, a few folks to read/watch are

• Bob pease (example video)
  
  
• Rod Elliot (Elliot Sound Products website)
  
  
• Doug Self (a good book and some articles)
  
  
• Fran Blanche (tends to vintage analog)
  
  
• Bob Cordell
  
  
• Nelson Pass (I disagree with his ideas on sound, but his circuits are very much worth studying.)
  
  For digital, I follow Jeri Ellsworth, but again I tend to avoid digital.

When you've gotten through those, and have a handle on the material, I'd recommend Bob McCarthy's Sound System Design and Optimization, Davis' Sound System Engineering, and Ballou's Handbook for Sound Engineers.

I read this book to help get me started out before:


The Complete Guide to High-End Audio https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978649362/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_mUJUDbZ4QWTD0

Sound System Engineering (Don Davis / Eugene Patronis / Pat Brown): https://www.amazon.com/Sound-System-Engineering-4e-Fourth/dp/0240818466/

Acoustic Absorbers & Diffusers (D'Antonio/Cox): https://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Absorbers-Diffusers-Theory-Application/dp/0415471745/

Sound Systems Design & Optimization (Bob McCarthy): https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-Alignment/dp/0415731011/

pdf:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ny2ios

https://www.sendspace.com/file/xyoa7j

http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/an_early_history_of_modern_power_amplifiers/studyhall

Doug Self has a book on power amplifier design that has a history chapter as well as several notes on the history of various topologies:
http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Power-Amplifier-Design-Douglas/dp/0240526139

In that case, I bet you'll want to take the custom route. Have a pair custom made for yourself and you'll never go back to the generic ones. Here are a few resources to get started. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].

Newer edition is actually cheaper!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0415731011/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-Alignment/dp/0415731011

Start with reading every thing you can find and then make informed decisions from there.

https://www.amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason/dp/1882580478/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468992574&sr=1-1&keywords=loudspeaker+design+cookbook+7th+edition

https://www.amazon.com/Speaker-Building-201-Comprehensive-Course/dp/1882580451/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468992780&sr=1-1&keywords=speaker+building

https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Building-Testing-Speaker-Projects/dp/007069429X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468992806&sr=1-2&keywords=speaker+building

Look at Sound Systems Design & Optimization If you're looking for theory behind how sound systems work.

I found this at my local library The Complete Guide to High-End Audio, and might be what you're after.

When you build a 300 watt stereo amplifier that operates in the audio frequency band, the majority of cost is going to be the power supply and the power output stage. You'll need a power transformer rated approximately 800 VA like THIS ONE which will set you back about a hundred bucks including shipping. You'll also need some big ass filter capacitors rated for >9 amperes ripple current, such as THESE. You need to create +76VDC and -76VDC (assuming an 8 ohm load and Vpeak = Vsupply minus 6V due to rectifier+ripple+emitter follower drops). The supply voltage will be higher if you user power MOSFETs instead of power BJTs. To handle 300 watts per channel you're probably going to need at least 4 power-PNP transistors and at least 4 power-NPN transistors, per channel. Representative transistor prices HERE and HERE

You'll also need big ass heatsinks, big ass fuses, and big ass rectifiers.

Have a look at books by Randy Slone, Bob Cordell, and Ben Duncan. AMAZON-1, AMAZON-2, AMAZON-3

Since the majority of cost is in the high-power circuitry which you absolutely require, you won't save much money by deliberately making the amplifier "low fidelity" rather than "high fidelity". Sorry.