Johan Basse Bergqvist’s book The Bottle Builder presents a long, impressive gallery of tube amplifier projects described not just with a personal stance, but also humor, an open mind, good anecdotes, and an equally good emphasis on all the technical aspects of design and implementation. With every project, the focus is on what makes a particular amplifier “special” in terms of design or performance, which as we all know are not necessarily in agreement. This book is secure on the bookshelf of all audio engineers at Elektor Labs. Want to know why? Just check out the 35-page preview of the book and see for yourself.

The project designs in The Bottle Builder are hands on: If you follow the instructions you can build and enjoy these designs, helped by the BOMs and PCB designs. The projects range from simple and suitable for beginners (Bluebottle) to ambitious and requiring more skill (SUBSTORY ultralinear PP 50W) and delightfully also include preamplifiers, compressors, and tweaks & adds to commercial products (Neumann, Quad, Leak). Practically every project also includes a Bill of Materials, detailed schematics, and PCB designs.

The Bottle Builder not only contains a massive amount of information on tube amplifier design, you will also get an impressive, thick A4 size book (440 pages) with two posh, red ribbon bookmarks and a hard cover. Definitely one to join the collection that will stand the test of time. So now is the time for all you tubed-audio fans, addicts, filament heaters, collectors, and tweakers to pick up a copy of The Bottle Builder!