Learning takes effort; real effort. It’s hard. It would be nice if this wasn’t so, but seldom does the universe simply bend to our desires. If your want to learn something new, you need to be willing to put in the effort. There are no shortcuts!

So let me backup a little bit and relate how I got here.

The offending text

Several days ago I was reading a tube forum and there were several comments about a book which someone had published. Commenters were referencing what they had “learned” and how much they liked this particular book. The book was a modern release (2nd Ed. 2022) ostensibly concerning a particular aspect of vacuum tube amplifier design. Since I had never looked at the text in question, I decided to give it a read. I placed the indicated volume on hold at my local library and picked it up today.

I spent three hours this afternoon reading this particular volume. To say I was underwhelmed would be an understatement. I’ve seen a lot of books of this type. They appear to be collections of general information with a handful of equations thrown in to give it a thin veneer of technical authority. But there is really no solid theory and virtually nothing about actual design.

The text in question was true to type. It went from generality to generality without providing enough detail to actually help the reader. Instead of discussing salient points of application, the text would throw in a quick “rules of thumb” which were misleading at best and seriously counter productive at worst. It read more like an exposition for the author to brag about all he “knew” instead of a teaching reference. This particular text also included entire sections on topics which were very niche and should never be included in a vacuum tube amplifier.

After reading it I had a feeling and turned to the fore matter looking for publishing information. As I thought, it was self published by the author. I seriously doubt any technical editor got within 100 feet of this book before it was published. Not that a technical editor would have really helped this text, but they might have at least provided enough feedback to the author to get something a little more useful to the reader. This one was almost useless.

Learning from Textbooks and Scientific Papers

When I answer questions or provide information, I make a real effort to provide solid technical information. I also freely reference both published texts and scientific papers which provide extensive detail to back up what I’ve said. I think this is important.

I do sometimes get a fair amount of push back when I direct someone to a text like “Theory And Application Of Electron Tubes”, Herbert J. Reich, Ph.D., 2nd edition, 1944. I understand that this is a dense volume which can be a little intimidating. Often, people open the chapter or section I suggested and complain back to me that it’s too complicated or there’s too much math. But when I ask how much time they spent with the section in question it’s usually from a few minutes to maybe an hour.

You may be surprised to learn that, as an Engineer, if directed to a reference paper or text, I expect to spend several hours to perhaps several days to fully understand what’s written there. I would not only be reading the text, but studying the mathematics, looking at footnotes, and checking referenced papers. And in the case of text books, working problems listed at the end of chapters. I’d be drawing simple circuits and applying what’s in the text to those simple circuits. When I open a technical text or paper I always come with pencil and paper in hand.

Make no mistake, I understand that this approach is difficult. It takes time, effort, and no small amount of serious thinking. After studying a technical text, I often wake up in the middle of the night with some question or revelation which has to be addressed in my head. If only superficially so that I can get back to sleep. If you read a text or paper and you only come away confused or with nothing new, then you need to spend more time with it. Seldom will you read a published technical paper or textbook that has nothing new to offer.

An Example: Feedback

A good example of this is the paper I referenced in the post “A Quick Note on Feedback in Audio Amplifiers”. In this post I referenced Harold Black’s original paper on the use of feedback in electrical amplifiers, H.S. Black, “Stabilized feed-back amplifiers”, Electrical Engineering, vol. 53, pp. 114-120, Jan. 1934. And I urged readers interested in feedback to read the paper in detail. When I first read this paper, even though I was already well versed in feedback amplifier design, I spent several hours reading and digesting the text and then went on to apply the methodology to a couple of sample circuits.

For a hobbyist, unfamiliar with detailed Engineering principles, I would expect the exploration of this paper to take several days at least. I expect this because that’s the level of effort normally required to really learn something important. And even though I am a trained and experienced Engineer, I keep all the papers and texts I’ve read as references. I regularly refer back to this library of information while designing new projects. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s impossible to keep everything about any given topic in your head.

Which Brings Me Back to the Book

What really upset me about the book I mentioned above is that there was really nothing there to learn. But it’s worse than simply being a shallow and insipid text. The book presents itself as something that it’s not. A person reading through this book could be fooled into thinking that they had learned new technical information. However, in actuality, all that the casual reader would have learned is some smattering of unrelated assertions unsupported by any real technical understanding.

And this is why I generally refer readers to either high level text books or peer reviewed technical papers. Even though such references can be dense and difficult to understand, they contain the real and important technical information that supports real learning.

So What’s the Take-Away from All This?

What I am imploring is for you to not be afraid or resistant to spending some real time and effort on learning new things. Some people make learning look easy. But even for the best and brightest among us, real learning takes time and effort.

And if you stumble upon a text like the one I describe above, be wary. If it doesn’t answer the difficult questions, if it recommends “rules of thumb” instead of hard theory, and if it presents disparate information without a clear path or methodology to tie it all together, then be cautious about applying what it says. Any good text on tube amplifiers, whether textbook, technical paper, or published article should have references and a presented way to learn more detail.

I struggled with this post. Even after significant editing, I think it still comes off as a little professorial and dialectic. That was not my intent. I only want to impress upon the reader that no one should be reluctant to apply significant time and effort to something they want to learn. With time and effort comes a deeper and richer understanding. Which in the end leads to better designs, increased satisfaction, and much more enjoyment of the process.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.