Understanding Hi-Fi Circuits

Norman Crowhurst was the nearest thing to a perfect audio author audiophiles have ever had and was also marvelously understandable by all levels of readers. Fortunately, he wrote on a wide variety of audio topics. His untimely death in 1992 was a major loss to audiophiles everywhere. This volume (first published in 1957) is vintage Crowhurst, amazingly insightful but also down-to-earth. The underlying theme of the book is the fact that absolute perfection in audio circuitry is impossible. Therefore in each chapter, Crowhurst discusses all the relevant design choices involved in a selected class of audio components and how to reach a balance of design compromises. The book's title, Understanding Hi-Fi Circuits, clearly states his theme which he discusses in his introductory section. From there he goes on to what he considers the single most important audio ingredient, the power amplifier's output stage. In chapter three he looks at feedback which continues to be a highly controversial,