The Art of Electronics

I was referred to this by an EE friend of mine. I have had some experience in dabbling with electronics, and have tried several different guidebooks. I can say with absolute certainty that this one is the best I've seen. It says what needs to be said in a clear, concise manner, without blathering needlessly like many other textbooks tend to do.

It should be noted, though, that this is not a beginner's book. You should have a little bit of knowledge on the subject of electronics. If you do, you'll find yourself having many of those valuable "Oh, so that's how that works!"-moments.

Highly recommended!

In my opinion this is the single best electronics book on the market. However, it is not for beginners. You should work through something like Hands-On Electronics or Ahmed and Spreadbury's textbook first.

The Art of Electronics is a second course in electronics for people who already know some basic circuit design but want to get much wider experience. It is strong on fully specified, buildable circuits and practical advice. The authors use a minimum of mathematics because - as working designers - they realize there's no point in doing high-precision calculations with low-precision numbers.

A great textbook and reference guide on fundamental electronics. My only complaint is the index, which frequently presents with incorrect page references. I'd like to see H & H come out with a third edition with a corrected index and some more modern circuits, such as LCDs and TRIACs.

Simply, it is an electronic treasure, it covers a very wide range of electronics plus a very helpful circuits, but it has one disadvantage, that is, the excercises inside the book, they must be solved in the end of the book just to be sure that you are doing well with the book. Except that it is a great reachy book.

I generally like this book but it takes a great deal of work to really understand what they are talking about. They claim that load lines and small signal models are not necessary but then use elements of both. The book is much easier to understand if you include these concepts. It seems to me that these concepts were actually in the back of their minds when they wrote the book. Trying to visualize the path of operation of a transistor without using the output characteristic curves seems very frustrating. Their explanation of the input impedance of an emitter follower is very confusing unless you already have a very thorough understanding of Q-points and what this actually represents on the characteristic curves. If you use their book as a starting point after having a good understanding of analog electronics engineering, then it is a good book. Likewise, the chapters on digital electronics are good, but only if you already have a good grasp of digital electronics engineering. Not many electrical engineering textbooks explain the operation of a differential ampifier well and this one does not either. They do explain the design of constant current sources well, but it makes much more sense if a set of output characteristic curves are used along with their explanation. Not many textbooks really explain how a computer works as a sequential machine. This one does not either. They simply talk about the different circuits used in a computer, but not how they actually work to create a sequential machine. They give examples of circuits that do not work and I generally liked that idea. Their explanation of feedback and frequency response leaves a great deal of information out. Again, if you already have a solid grasp of these concepts, then these sections are good.