Free Book(PDF) on Solid State Guitar Amplifiers

[westtexasred]

This is a new book(2008) 419 page book in PDF formatSolid State Guitar Amplifiers by Teemu Kyttala with loads of info on this sparsely covered subject.

Excerpt from the introduction:

"While there is plenty of material written about tube amplifier design solid-state
amplifiers are mostly left ignored. The case is even worse when it comes to solid-state
guitar amplifiers. Fortunately, solid-state and tube amplifier circuits share a lot of
similarities. The theory is – for the most part – interchangeable. However, many
principles used in designing tube amplifiers will not work with transistor circuitry and
if they do, they might provide unsatisfactory results. Claims that a solid-state amplifier
cannot sound as good as a tube amplifier is utterly untrue and mostly heard from the
mouths of three kinds of people: 1) people that have very little or no knowledge about
electronics, 2) tube snobs who persistently claim that all transistor amplifiers must
sound bad, yet would stick a Fuzz Face (or similar) in front of their tube amplifier
without even blinking an eye and 3) experts of tube amplifier circuitry that
unfortunately possess a limited knowledge about solid-state design. While someone
might master tube technology, the truth is that tube- and solid-state circuitry differ a
lot from each other. One should not unreservedly believe statements about transistor
circuitry presented by a tube expert – as one should not unreservedly believe
statements about tube circuitry presented by a solid-state circuitry expert either.
Though the knowledge about both technologies should go hand-in-hand, too often it
doesn’t. Very regrettable thing is that a great deal of highly talented tube guitar
amplifier experts deliberately avoid educating themselves about solid-state as they see
it as an inferior technology."

[Will]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm a confirmed solid state fan and have been wanting to build my own amp for the longest time. Hopefully this will make that possible.

[benecol]

NickS to thread...

[NickS]

Yes, I've built one or two solid-state amps and own a few too. I used to have a tiny Fender Bassman 100-watt transistor amp (XP-3100?) but sold that. The first amp I owned was a WEM PA 100. I currently have two HH VS Musician Reverb 100s in the house (one head, one combo), an HH VS Bassamp combo in the garage and Tim (Benecol) is keeping an HH IC100L for me until he passes this way. I'm quite happy with the HH VS amps; a three-way voicing switch gives quite a variation in character but they can sound Fender clean or Marshall growly at any volume, and they do go LOUD. Must do a demo some time.

[benecol]

Must do a demo some time.

That's be good - in the short time I spent living around that H/H combo, I was really impressed with the way it sounded.

[Thomas]

They are top amps. I think you're the only other person I know of that has one.