Designing Audio Circuits and Systems will have its 1st Edition published in April 2024, and advanced copies are being sent to reviewers, which includes audioXpress. Bob Cordell, wrote this new book as a comprehensive guide to audio circuits and systems design, beginning with analog audio basics, all the way through to in-depth design techniques for home and professional audio preamps, amplifiers, filters, equalizers, and even headphone amplifiers and DACs.This book is the long-awaited sequel to Bob's Designing Audio Power Amplifiers. Cordell has a long-standing track record of designing audio equipment as well as advanced test equipment. He is an equal-opportunity designer, having built amplifiers with vacuum tubes, bipolar transistors and MOSFETs. He has published numerous articles and papers on power amplifier design and distortion measurement in the audio press and in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society.
His error correction amplifier design of 1983 (!) achieved unprecedented distortion levels of less than 0.001% at 20kHz. He also designed transient intermodulation and phase intermodulation test equipment to cut through the raging discussions with hard facts. All of these designs are documented on his website www.cordellaudio.com.
Rather than coming out with a new edition of Designing Audio Power Amplifiers (which he updated in 2019 and audioXpress reviewed here), Bob has sensibly decided to extend his offering in width and breadth, treating pretty much everything electronic there is to be found in audio. Beginning with analog audio circuit design basics that a novice can understand, this book offers insight all the way through to in-depth design techniques for many different audiophile and professional audio circuits and functions.
It covers microphone preamps (for all existing types of microphones!) and Moving Magnet and Moving Coil phono preamplifiers, Tape Preamps and NAB/IEC Equalization to give you just a glimpse of how comprehensively Bob treats audio sources.
Next are filter and equalizer designs, fader and panning circuits, balanced line driver and line receiver circuits, DC servos, and headphone amplifiers and crossfeed circuits. There are chapters on self-powered loudspeaker design, active crossovers and Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs).
All this is supported by extensive design topics like low-noise amplifier design, understanding and applying negative feedback, filter and equalizer design. Some more advanced topics include passive components, Surface Mount Technology and poles, zeros, networks and Bode plots and distortion. There are also sections on semiconductor devices and opamps, switches and relays and power supplies and grounding.
If you are more into audio production, check out the chapters on Voltage Controlled Amplifiers (VCAs), Compressors and Other Dynamic Processors, Level Displays and Metering, Microcontrollers and Microcomputers, Mixers and Recording Consoles and DI Boxes and Microphone Splitters.
Bridging the analog and digital worlds, "Designing Audio Circuits and Systems" is essential reading for those in the professional audio engineering community, as well as students and enthusiasts who wish to design audio circuits and functions for pro audio or audiophile applications, and live sound or studio mixing consoles.
audioXpress will publish an in-depth review of the book by the time it is available later this spring, but you can already pre-order at Routledge. Available for pre-order on April 3, 2024.
Designing Audio Circuits and Systems, First edition
Focal Press
ISBN 9781032010892
792 Pages with 360 B/W illustrations
www.routledge.com
