New book on amplifier design and construction

[bobmegantz]

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've recently published a book titled "Design and Construction of Tube Guitar Amplifiers," intended for musicians and amp builders.  It fully describes the technology, but only requires high school level math and science (at least that's my goal).

More details can be found at www.translucidamps.com.

Tnx
Bob

[PRR]

> I've recently published a book titled "Design and Construction of Tube Guitar Amplifiers," intended for musicians and amp builders.

A new book is always good news.

I don't know if you will be back, or just joined to post your ad. If you see this:

The Table of Contents and Author Blurb look very good. However, buyers "need" to flip a few pages to judge if the book is above them, beneath them, or gibberish. (I've seen some doozies.) Kuehnel and Merlin post pages or a chapter, free samples to lure buyers.

The Purchase page does not list the PRICE. Yes, it was on another page, but don't expect us to remember from one instant to the next. Put the whole buy-info (price, shipping, tax) together where you offer the sale.

All the pages appear to have the same URL, which is a clue to the next issue....

The Buy Now button simply does not work (in MS IE 7), AND the Back button won't let you try-again. And you obviously know this, because you have alternate instructions (which we can't get back to). HOW many sales are you losing with this mis-wired BUY button?

The site claims to be http://www.translucidamps.com/ but is really at http://www.tactec.biz/Bookhome.html which means you are using some form of FrameSet to appear at a vanity URL while served from another machine. That's useful, yet tricky. And too tricky for MS IE 7 versus PayPal (works in FireFox, but MSIE is still most-common).

Your ORDER link should probably go directly to http://www.tactec.biz/bookpurchase.html which is the actual (no frame) page, and apparently the URL PayPal expects orders to come from. While the translucidamps URL is sweet, the BUY has to work no-fail. And without "entering the URL ... directly..." (And anyway that should be a click-link, not something to copy by eye.) Most folks won't notice the server-name change, and if you have the same logo the sharp-eyes will accept that it is the same site's back-end. 

While snooping, I noticed you have other stuff on the tactec site, and some of it really ought to be linked from the translucidamps pages.

Since the Owner of -this- site is a "store", it would be courteous to ask before promoting other products on his space. I think he would agree that this news is appropriate and not over-done, but still....

[PRR]

Mis-matched HTML tags: "<li>" where there should be "</li>" (at " ---!"). That's why the list-dots don't come out right.

<center>Areas of Expertise</center></h2>
<ul>
<li>Electronics</li>
<li>Software<li>            -----!
<li>Audio</li>
<li>Computing</li>
<li>Telecommunications</li>
<li>Semiconductors<li>            -----!
</ul>

[tubesornothing]

It'd be nice to see a couple of pages...  from chapter 3 perhaps?   

[bobmegantz]

Tnx for the comments, especially vis-a-vis the site.  As you noted, I have struggled with getting the buy now button to work with some clients.  The translucidamps site just forwards to www.tactec.biz/Bookhome, but once you're there the purchase link does go to www.tactec.biz/bookpurchase.html.

I am also concerned about losing buyers, but can't figure out how to aboid this problem without abandoning the translucidamps.com url, which would also lose buyers.  I'm just hoping most buyers will use paypal...

As far as adding some text, I'll see if I can swing that.

Also, tnx for the html tips.

Bob

[bobmegantz]

PRR -

I tried your suggestion re the purchase page (going directly to www.tactec.biz/Bookhome.html), and would be interested to know if the link performs differently for you now.  Pls. let me know if you get a chance to check it out.

Tnx
Bob

[bobmegantz]

PRR -

One more thing to (hopefully) set your mind at ease re my initial posting, I only did so after obtaining permission.

Bob

[LooseChange]

Lost another sale... I hit the "buy now" button and Paypal said,  "Sorry — your last action could not be completed."

[Shrapnel]

Bob,

sandbox your paypal links and play with the invalid card numbers that have been made available to test with. (safe numbers to test with, as nobody gets charged, and they pass the hash tests for card numbers.) Once you got the links down pat, you can bring your new site code on-line your sales pages after making sure you fix the addresses to point to the proper places instead of the sandbox.

note: Opera can have problems bouncing between sites depending on cookie settings (Flash Cookies may or may not get around this problem.)

[bobmegantz]

I believe I finally found and fixed the problem (you can't use Buy Now with IE).

For those interested, I was using masked forwarding from www.translucidamps.com to www.tactec.biz/Bookhome.html.  For some reason (probably security) IE didn't like this.  Switching to standard (non-masked) forwarding solved the problem.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Bob

[tubeswell]

FWIW One of the guys at MEF reviewed Bob's book here:

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t15432/

I haven't got the book so I can't tell from the review whether it covers things like reverb driver design (including RT load lines etc) and tremolo and vibrato design, which is what I would like to have in a book. (I've already got RDHB Ed4 and Merlin Blencowe's recent book, as well as a few other odds and ends which between them cover the basics pretty well)

[jhadhar65]

That's good to see.  Speaking for myself, I have no problems whatsoever hanging my hat on anything OTm says and I avidly follow his posts wherever I find them.  If he digs it, then it's to be dug.

[bobmegantz]

tubeswell -

you can see the TOC on www.translucidamps.com.  There is a chapter on effects, which includes reverb and tremolo (not vibrato).

Bob

[tubeswell]

Thanks Bob. A couple of things I need to know before I take the plunge.

On reverb - does it cover some of the 'finer points' of reverb driver design like calculating load lines for parallel triodes, and/or for pentodes/tretrodes etc driving reverb transformers etc, as well as calculating gain structure through the pre-amp circuit (so you can work out how much to amplify the recovery signal in comparison to the main signal insertion point, and blending the reverb recovery signal with the main signal etc etc)?

On tremolo, does it cover the math with worked examples for calculating the RC network for the LFO cycle, different types of trem circuits  (including circuits that eliminate the tremolo noise floor - through use of phase inversion, and designing circuits for different trem signal insertion points in the amp signal path from pre-amp acthodes to bias vary trem to ones coupled to the screen grid)?

Also about how much is registered mail to New Zealand?

Cheers

[bobmegantz]

on reverb - it covers the fender circuit (including a discussion of how to create load lines for parallel 12at7 triodes) and how to set the relative gains of the two inputs to the mixer.

on tremelo - it covers the fender circuit and the ampeg bias mod circuit.  There is a discussion of the LFO, but it does not include detailed math for calculating the frequency of oscillation.  It does include some hints to figure out if you're in the ballpark.  There's a good discussion of that on the Aiken amps site, though.

Shipping to NZ by int 1st class is $9.50.  I'm sorry, but I don't know about registered mail rates.

Bob