Preface to the 5th Edition of Acoustics and Psychoacoustics
This Fifth Edition of Acoustics and Psychoacoustics has been prepared during the twentieth year after the first edition, which came out in 1996, and we are proud to note that it continues to be adopted as a core text in courses all around the world. Revisions have been made in each subsequent edition to correct errors and slips that we have noticed or that readers have reported to us (we are very grateful to them for this), and it provides a welcome opportunity to add new information and new material that is relevant to gaining a fuller understanding of the topics discussed. Most of the revisions made in the second edition were based on reader feedback, the main change in the third edition was the inclusion of the audio compact disk (CD) to provide recorded material for use in learning, and for the fourth edition, the final chapter underwent major changes to bring in practical work that is based on acoustics and psychoacoustics to encourage readers to use their ingenuity by thinking creatively about things that can be done in the area to improve lives through engineering new devices, procedures and systems for the future.
For this fifth edition, various parts of the text have been enlarged to bring them up to date, including in Chapter 2, updates to temporal perception, loudness JND, head-related transfer functions (HRTFs), auditory pathways beyond the cochlea; in Chapter 3, more on pitch just-noticeable differences (JNDs); in Chapter 4, an updated description of the mechanism responsible for vocal fold vibration and the acoustics of non-Western musical instruments; in Chapter 5, an update on the psychoacoustics of timbre; in Chapter 6, more recent acoustic treatments and builds and variable acoustics in purpose-built spaces; and in Chapter 7, cochlear implants, the effect of the environment on production and listening, sonification, eBU listening test standards, spatial listening through loudspeakers and through headphones and wavefield synthesis. By adding to existing topics and including new ones, we hope that we have enlarged the scope of the book to bring it up to date within the changing field of acoustics and psychoacoustics twenty years after the publication of the first edition.
Alongside these major changes, we have made a number of minor edits that have been brought to our attention by readers from around the world; thank you to all who have been kind enough to send these in. They are always welcome, and our reader community serves us so well by providing thoughts and corrections that enable us to improve the book with each new edition as a benefit to all our readers.
Our ears and hearing systems are crucial to our daily lives, although they are so often taken for granted and abused through exposure to loud sounds. We hope that this book will increase understanding of the functioning of the hearing system and how it can be preserved and looked after in practice. We both promote the role of creativity and ingenuity in all branches of engineering, and acoustic engineering for whatever purpose is no exception. Whether your interest is in acoustics, psychoacoustics, studio engineering, audio engineering, music technology, mixing sounds, altering or improving the acoustics of spaces, making recordings, composing music, or performing music, we believe that there is important information in Acoustics and Psychoacoustics. Communication by sound is fundamental to human existence; we hope that there is something for everyone who reads this fifth edition of Acoustics and Psychoacoustics.
David M. Howard (London, UK) and
Jamie A. S. Angus (Salford, UK)
November 2016