John Laurence Linsley-Hood (9 February 1925 in

Wandsworth Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Gre ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

– 11 March 2004 in

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

electronics engineer and designer of audio components. He was educated at

Reading School Reading School is a grammar school for boys with academy status in the English town of Reading, the county of Berkshire. It traces its history back to the school of Reading Abbey and is, thus, one of the oldest schools in England. There are no ...

, Acton Polytechnic, the

Royal Technical College The Royal College of Science and Technology was a higher education college that existed in Glasgow, Scotland between 1887 and 1964, and is the predecessor institution of the University of Strathclyde. Its main building on George Street now serve ...

(Glasgow) and after World War Two, at

Reading University The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

. In 1942 Linsley-Hood joined the G.E.C. Research Laboratories at Wembley, working on

magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and currently in microwave ovens and linear particle accelerators. It generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field while ...

development as junior member of a team. Joining the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

aircrew in 1943, he was transferred to work on

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

, then subsequently worked with T.R.E. (Malvern) overseas. After returning to university, Linsley-Hood joined the Windscale Research Laboratories of the

Atomic Energy Authority The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ( ...

. He was in charge of the electronics team in the Research Laboratories of

British Cellophane British Cellophane Ltd (BCL) was a joint venture company formed in 1935 between La Cellophane SA and Courtaulds, when they began building a major factory for producing Cellophane in Bridgwater, Somerset, England. History 19th century The proces ...

Ltd. from 1954. John Linsley-Hood is best remembered by hi-fi enthusiasts for his "Simple

Class A Amplifier In electronics, power amplifier classes are letter symbols applied to different power amplifier types. The class gives a broad indication of an amplifier's characteristics and performance. The classes are related to the time period that the active ...

",''Simple Class A Amplifier'' Article
Sound.whsites.net which he developed to provide a good-quality performance comparable to that of the classic

Williamson amplifier The Williamson amplifier is a four-stage, push-pull, Class A triode-output valve audio power amplifier designed by D. T. N. Williamson during World War II. The original circuit, published in 1947 and addressed to the worldwide do it yourself c ...

. The design was published in ''

Wireless World ''Electronics World'' (''Wireless World'', founded in 1913, and in September 1984 renamed ''Electronics & Wireless World'') is a technical magazine in electronics and RF engineering aimed at professional design engineers. It is produced monthly in ...

'' in 1969 (April 1969 issue, p. 148), and later updated in 1996. Linsley-Hood wrote for a number of magazines and published books on schematics for audio components, including: * ''The Art of Linear Electronics'' (Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1993) * ''Audio Electronics'' (Oxford, Newnes, 1995) * ''Valve and Transistor Audio Amplifiers'' (Oxford, Newnes, 1997)

References

External links

* dedicated, with collection of further material (archived by the Web Archive) * Retrospective article, Electronics World, September 1996 (archived by the Web Archive)
Amazon
author list of published books {{DEFAULTSORT:Hood, John Linsley British electronics engineers English audio engineers English electrical engineers 2004 deaths 1925 births Alumni of the University of Reading