Solid State Lineage

[father of fires]

I am a big DIY fan and I'm looking to learn a little more about transistor amp history. Mainly the evolution of amp designs.

I have built a few tube and transistor circuits and I have noticed that tube amp history is well documented but, solid state history is almost nonexistent.

Most of the tube amp circuits we see today are based on a few designs out of old RCA field guides and such. This has me wondering where did the original transistor amp designs come from? Is there a classic transistor application guide? I have seen excerpts from some but, I'm not sure if any particular one is worth searching out.

Old school GKs, Sunns, Kustoms, ACC, etc had to come from somewhere but, they don't appear to have many similarities.

Anyone have any insight?

[KramerBassFan]

Most stuff was more or less in house, or done by engineers from other big companies - i believe the GK guys came from Hewlett Packard?

VOX designed their transistor stuff in house (before the Thomas Organ Debacle).

Part of the reason is, nobody really cares.

Transistors are used on a much larger scale, and aren't really viewed as a technology of a bygone era, such as tubes are. Remember, outside of the musical instrument field, and some radio, and Hi-fi, tubes are more or less extinct.

That said, mostly the companies who survived on Solid State designs were the ones who did them well... who now is Gassing for a STANDEL? or Fender Solid State Bassman?

WEM and SUNN are two particularly successful companies when it comes to Solid State - check out their stuff. Peavey and KUSTOM as well. Trannys didn't help VOX.. but that was more of management and Marshall amplification than the fact their designs were bad. WEM somewhat invented the "huge racks of PA amps linked together as a PA system", instead of trying to use just a few huge monsters. And it worked out quite well for them.

[father of fires]

Thanks. That's some good info.

I guess what I'm asking is what was the building block that all of these engineers started from?

Did they all just have a COMPLETE understanding of transistor theory so early on? Was everyone a genius?

Were there guys that just copied brand X's application guide?

Did they modify tube circuits for use with transistors?

Maybe I'm alone but, I want to go back to the beginning so see how we got where we are today.

[KramerBassFan]

And STANDEL is a truly fascinating company, to me at least... even though i've never owned anything of theirs. Very cool company.

Oh, not at ALL!

Loads of companies sunk them selves or nearly did from absolutely wretched solid state designs.

Fender had a line of Solid state stuff, and it nearly put them under the water. I've never seen one work... or even sound good.

You can't really modify a tube circuit for transistors... but they almost did. For example, all the solid state amps that have output transformers and standbys.

And the brand X application guide? I don't know. Only a few companies got it right at first, and the tech slowly got better.

Try building a 300w power amplifier out of Germanium transistors So silicon transistors certainly helped everyone out.

Rickenbacker also "got it right" with their stuff, but that is more thanks to the genius that is Bob Rissi, than the boys at RIC... and don't tell anybody, but Bob also designed the fender solid state stuff.... second times a charm, eh.

[father of fires]

Damn. I was hoping to open up a discussion but, you seemed to answer most of my queries. Thank you good sir.

[seamonkey]

Watch out, this is a big download, but a fun read
http://www.thatraymond.com/downloads...ttala_v1.0.pdf

[father of fires]

Originally Posted by seamonkey

Watch out, this is a big download, but a fun read
http://www.thatraymond.com/downloads...ttala_v1.0.pdf

Thanks. I'll check it out.

Damn I was gonna try and print this at work. I may need to go to a kinkos.

[father of fires]

Awesome. I would love some more old school engineers to chime in. This stuff fascinates the hell out of me.

[BassmanPaul]

See if a google search returns anything about Dan Meyer's Tiger amp series. These taught me a lot about the design of reliable complementary transistor amplifiers. Ended up designing and building a 200W/channel dual mono power amp in the Eighties. It still works perfectly all these years later.

Paul