Is there a book/website that meticulously covers vintage pro audio equipment (analogous to a history of marshall amplifiers book, or ampwares - the fender amp website - specifications, materials, transformers, etc.) BUT for mic preamps, compressors, eq's, consoles, analog tape machines, etc.

Perhaps even a book/website that covers what equipment certain bands used when recording (maybe even engineers who did it)

Or do I have to spend countless hours on forums, and usually by luck, hitting upon a thread which has some information, for example, about the difference between old Urei compressors (and sometimes find out later they were not quite right?)

I'm slowly getting bits and pieces from the forums, but it would be great to have some solid sources to fill in the gaps.

I want to educate myself on the history of all this, so I can especially understand current products (especially the ones cloning, doing variants, or doing their own design altogether).