Welcome to my website for audio enthusiasts and professionals alike. My name is Bob Cordell and I hope you will enjoy the contents here. I am both an engineer and a DIY hobbyist, and I love to mix the two.

Designing Audio Power Amplifiers, 2nd Edition

Routledge • ISBN 1138555444

The second edition of Designing Audio Power Amplifiers, is now available for pre-order at Amazon. It will be published by Focal/Routledge in May. The 776-page second edition includes 5 new chapters. Many of the chapters of the first edition have been substantially updated and expanded. The art and science of audio power amplifier design is covered in a way that is intended to be readable and valuable to professionals, enthusiasts and educators alike. In order to cover audio power amplifier design with depth and breadth, many foundational electrical engineering subjects are covered as well. These include circuit design, semiconductors, low-noise design, feedback compensation, SPICE simulation, switch-mode power supplies and others. Coverage of these subjects makes the book a valuable resource for electrical engineering that goes well beyond the subject of audio power amplifiers.

I have tried to make the book both broad and deep, with 36 chapters covering both foundational and advanced aspects of amplifier design. Two chapters are dedicated to SPICE simulation and modeling, and four chapters are dedicated to class D amplifiers. Three of the new chapters cover low-noise design, professional power amplifiers and switch-mode power supplies (SMPS), all in some depth. Take a quick tour of the book by clicking below to see the Preface, Chapter Listing, and Table of Contents. Whether you are new to amplifier design or a seasoned professional with years of experience, I think you’ll enjoy the read.

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What's on this Site

Here you'll find information on audio electronics design and loudspeaker design, with several examples of each described. Within audio electronics, most of the material is devoted to power amplifiers and the design of audio test instruments, a good example being a DIY THD analyzer. The loudspeaker area includes descriptions of four loudspeakers, including an active 3.5-way mini-tower and a subwoofer. Most of the speaker designs use first-order transient accurate crossovers. The loudspeaker section also includes a description of EQSS™, a patented low frequency loudspeaker system technique that combines the best features of sealed systems and vented systems. Finally, over the years I've published a number of papers on audio, and PDF's of those are also available here.