Where did you learn about DIY Audio/Electronics

Did you learn purely from experience, from internet reading, from books? I'm desperately trying to learn as much as I can about DIY Audio, ideally to build a Beta 22 or similar amplifier within a few years, but the sheer complexity boggles my small 18 year old mind. Do you have any good sites to learn about things like this? I would love a good web resource or book to learn about audio circuitry so that I can fully understand what I am building. So far the only projects I've done are a couple of SSMHs, DIY cables, simple stuff. 

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Originally Posted by Uncle Erik 

I learned - and am still learning - from a variety of sources. I took electronics shop in high school which was valuable, and I learned by getting an amateur radio license, too. A couple of influential people have been my late uncle, a Bell Labs guy and serious ham and a friend who was a nuclear electrician in the Navy. I also picked up a bit when I started restoring old radios and reading the books about radio.

Since, I've found great material at Pete Millett's site, the books by Morgan Jones and Bruce Rozenblit, AudioXpress and Sound Practices magazines, the TubeCAD Journal, the Boozhound Labs site is terrific, and I've Googled around lots of other hobbyist sites on the Internets.

My advice is to go hands-on. Pick a project. If you want solid state, build a CMoy. Buy the parts a few tools and just jump in. It is nicely documented and there are hundreds of people here who can answer your questions. You'll pick it up as you go along. If you're interested in tubes, go find an old five tube AM radio. You should be able to get one for $20-$40, and restore it. If you stay away from boutique parts, you can gut and restore one for about $30-$40. You'll learn a lot going through the radio and the bonus will be great AM sound - you'll be surprised at how good one sounds.

I've already built a Starving Student (two, one PCB, one P2P) and the obvious next step would be something like a CKKIII, on to a SOHA or whatever and working my way up. The real issue with this is budget. If I can, I'd like to build a Beta 22 first so I can skip the intermediary steps. I could always sell them I guess, but for some reason I never feel comfortable enough with my handiwork to sell things that I've made.

I think I might pick up the Art of Electronics and There are no Electrons, too bad the new edition of the Art won't be out until 2012 

I'm thinking maybe I'll build an M^3 to build and sell just to gain experience. I know head-fi only lets you sell for cost of parts and shipping, so that's what I would ask for it I guess. Actually looking at the Beta 22 itself, it doesn't look too bad, because of the clearly designed PCB. 

The cost is a bit daunting as well though. It might be a while on my college student budget.... I'll probably end up buying board by board as I can afford them, which will allow me time to populate each board (although I know that's the easy part.) The sigma 22 is definitely something I can handle without much trouble. I have family members with physics and computer engineering degrees who can help as well.

I think I'll stick with solid-state for now after building the SSMH, but thanks for the suggestion. Maybe I'll go back to tubes someday, but they require more special care than I can provide most of the time, so SS is just easier for me.

That's certainly true. Maybe I'll build the M^3 to compliment the SSMH, and then start saving my pennies for the Beta 22. My college forces it's students to get full time jobs for their third year, so that's an interesting prospect. Thank's for the help.

I just picked up a Kindle copy of There are no Electrons. It reads like a Douglas Adams novel. Fantastic. The first few chapters are review of things I already know (conventional current, static electricity, etc) but its entertainingly written.