Sound Reproduction

Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms, Third Edition explains the physical and perceptual processes that are involved in sound reproduction and demonstrates how to use the processes to create high-quality listening experiences in stereo and multichannel formats.

Understanding the principles of sound production is necessary to achieve the goals of sound reproduction in spaces ranging from recording control rooms and home listening rooms to large cinemas. This revision brings new science-based perspectives on the performance of loudspeakers, room acoustics, measurements and equalization, all of which need to be appropriately used to ensure the accurate delivery of music and movie sound tracks from creators to listeners.

The robust website (www. routledge. com/cw/toole) is the perfect companion to this necessary resource.

Acknowledgements

1. Live Classical Musical Performances
2. Live Popular Music Performances
3. Reproduced Sound - The Audio Industry
4. Preserving the Art - The Circle of Confusion
5. Music and Movies - the State of Affairs
6. The Role of Loudspeakers and Rooms
7. Human Adaptation, a Reality the Cannot be Ignored
8. Human Suggestibility

1. Requirements for Scientific Investigations

1. Is Blind Listening Necessary?
2. Hearing Ability and Listener Performance
3. Stress and Strain
4. How Many Channels?
5. Controlling the Variables in Subjective Evaluations

1. Controlling the Physical Variables

1. The Listening Room - Making Tests Blind
2. Real-time Loudspeaker Comparison Methods
3. Binaural Record/Replay Loudspeaker Comparisons
4. Listener Position and Seating
5. Relative Loudness
6. Absolute Loudness - Playback Sound Levels
7. Choosing Program Material
8. Power Amplifiers, Wire and So Forth

2. Controlling the Psychological Variables
3. How to do the Test

1. Is it preference or accuracy that is evaluated?

1. Chapter 4: The Perceptual and Physical Dimensions of Sound

1. The Frequency Domain
2. The Amplitude Domain
3. Amplitude and Frequency Together: Frequency Response
4. Amplitude and Frequency Together: Equal-Loudness Contours

1. Loudness Controls and Tone Controls - Do They Work, Are They necessary?

5. The Boundaries of What We Can Hear

1. What Is Acceptable Background Noise?

6. Linear Distortions: Amplitute and Phase vs. Frequency

1. Spectral Tilt
2. Resonances Viewed in Frequency and Time
3. Finding and Fixing Resonances
4. A Persistent Problem: Differentiating Between Evidence of Resonances and Acoustical Interference
5. Critical bands, ERB_Ns, and the "resolution" of the hearing system

7. Amplitude, Frequency and Time Together: Waterfall Diagrams
8. Phase and Polarity - Do We Hear Waveforms?

1. The Audibility of Phase Shift and Group Delay
2. Phase Shift at Low Frequencies: a Special Case
3. The Audibility of Absolute Polarity

9. Non-Linear Distortions
10. Wavelength, the Key to Understanding Much in Audio

1. Loudspeaker Directivity
2. Room Resonance Basics
3. Resistive/Porous Absorbers and Membrane/Diaphragmatic Absorbers
4. Diffusers and Other Sound Scattering Devices

1. The Wisdom of the Ancients
2. Identifying the Important Variables - What do we Measure?
3. Anechoic Measurements - the Spinorama Evolves
4. Total Sound Power as a Measured Parameter
5. Why do we measure what we do? Are there better ways?
6. Predicting Room curves From Anechoic Data - An Exercise in curve Matching.

1. A Message About Sound Absorption and Scattering
2. Why Do We Care About Room Curves?

7. Closing the Loop - Predicting Listener Preferences From Measurements

1. The Olive Experiments - Part One
2. The Olive Experiments - Part Two
3. The Olive Experiments - Part Three

8. Loudspeaker Resonances - Detection and Remedies
9. Summary and Discussion

1. One Room, Two Sound Fields - The Transition Frequency
2. A Brief History of Loudspeaker/Room Interactions
3. Timbral and Spatial Effects Attributable to Rooms

1. The Physical Variables: Early Reflections

1. Problems with the Stereo Phantom Center Image

2. The Physical Variables: Loudspeaker Directivity
3. The Physical Variables: Acoustical Surface Treatments

1. Absorbers
2. Engineered Surfaces and Other Sound Scattering/Diffusing Devices

4. Subjective Evaluations of Physical Variations

1. Side Wall Treatment: Reflecting or Absorbing -Kishinaga et al. (1979)
2. The Effect of Loudspeaker Directivity - Toole (1985)
3. Loudspeaker Directivity and Wall Treatment Together - Choisel (2005)
4. The Nature of the Sound Field - Klippel (1990)
5. Observations of an Audio Enthusiast - Linkwitz (2007)
6. Observations of an Audio Enthusiast - Toole (2016)
7. Floor Reflections: A Special Case?

5. Professional vs. Recreational Listening

1. Hearing Loss is a Major Concern
2. Discussion

6. Perceptual Effects of Room Reflections

1. Adaptation and Perceptual Streaming
2. The Effect of Rooms on Loudspeaker Sound Quality
3. The Effect of Rooms on Speech Intelligibility
4. Sound Localization in Reflective Spaces - The Precedence (Haas) Effect
5. Bringing the Precedence Effect into the Real Acoustical World

1. Ceiling vs. Wall Reflections
2. Real vs. Phantom Images
3. Speech vs. Various Musical Sounds

7. Meaningful Measurements of Reflection Amplitudes

1. The Basics of Room Resonances and Standing Waves

1. Optimizing Room Dimensions - Does an "Ideal" Room Exist?
2. Are Non-Rectangular Rooms the Answer?

2. Solutions for the Real World

1. Deliver Energy to the Modes and Dissipate Some of That Energy with Absorbers
2. Deliver Energy to the Modes and Reduce the Coupling of That Energy to the Listener By Optimizing the Listening Location - "Positional" Equalization
3. Reduce the Energy Delivered to a Bothersome Mode by Optimizing the Loudspeaker/Subwoofer Location
4. Reduce the Energy Delivered to a Bothersome Mode by Using Parametric Equalization
5. Reduce the Energy Delivered to a Bothersome Mode by Using Simple Mode-Manipulation Techniques
6. Selective Mode Activation in Rectangular Rooms Using Passive Multiple-Subwoofer Mode Manipulation
7. Mode Manipulation for Rectangular Rooms Using Multiple Subwoofers and Signal Processing
8. Mode Manipulation For Any Room Using Multiple Subwoofers and Signal Processing: Sound Field Management (SFM).
9. Revisiting Room Resonances in Time and Space

3. Do we Hear the Spectral Bump, the Temporal Ringing, or Both?
4. Stereo Bass: Little Ado About Even Less
5. Bass Management Makes it all Possible.
6. Summary and discussion

1. The effects of solid angles on the radiation of sound by omnidirectional sources
2. Classic adjacent-boundary effects

1. Alleviating adjacent-boundary effects

3. Loudspeaker mounting options and effects

1. An example of adjacent-boundary interference

4. "Boundary-friendly" loudspeaker designs
5. Array loudspeakers - other ways to manipulate boundary interactions
6. Listeners also have boundaries

1. Reverberation

1. Measuring reverberation time
2. Calculating reverberation time
3. Is there a more useful metric for our purposes?

2. Diffusion
3. Direct sound and early reflections
4. Near and far fields of rooms - sound level vs. distance
5. Near and far fields of sound sources

1. Point sources and real loudspeakers
2. Line sources

6. Air absorption at high frequencies
7. Screen loss in home theaters and cinemas
8. The directivities of common sound sources

1. The closed loop of cinema sound
2. Sound fields in cinemas

1. A loudspeaker in a cinema
2. Adding a screen and applying the X-curve

3. The origins of the X-curve
4. A recent study adds confirmation and clarity
5. Flat, direct sound is an enduring favorite
6. Alternative targets - is it time to move on?

1. Compatibility with the rest of the audio world
2. Compatability with the cinema world

7. The effects of room size and seats
8. Cinema sound - where to next

1. Good sound starts with good loudspeakers

1. Typical loudspeaker specifications - part of the problem

2. Loudspeakers in small rooms: the meaning of room curves

1. The effect of loudspeaker directional configuration
2. Looking back 42 years: the Møller/Brüel and Kjaer experiments
3. Room curves and equalization

3. Subjective preferences for sound spectra in listening rooms
4. Dialog intelligibility in home theaters
5. Recording control rooms

1. Old-school monitoring
2. Modern monitoring

1. Low frequencies - the universal problem
2. Sound above the transition frequency

1. Thirty years - some things change, some don't
2. The wrong room curve target?
3. "Room correction" and "room equalization" are misnomers.
4. Automotive audio
5. Headphones
6. Cinemas

3. Is there a common factor - a generalizable target?

1. Alternative views of frequency response

1. Prediction of the direct sound and room curves from anechoic data
2. In-situ measurement of the direct sound
3. The steady-state room curve

2. Measures of loudness and system level calibrations.

1. Evaluating relative program loudness levels
2. Multichannel system level calibration
3. The effect of propagation distance - a side-channel challenge
3. Measurement microphones

1. A few definitions
2. The birth of multichannel audio
3. Stereo - an important beginning

1. Loudspeakers as stereo image stabilizers

4. Quadraphonics - stereo times two
5. Multichannel audio - cinema to the rescue
6. Multichannel comes home

1. THX embellishments

7. How many loudspeakers and where?

1. Optimizing the delivery of "envelopment"
2. Summary

8. Surround system layouts

1. Loudspeaker directivity requirements
2. Mission oriented acoustical treatments
3. Surround loudspeaker options

9. The Ambisonics alternative
10. Upmixer manipulations: creative instincts at work
11. Multichannel audio goes digital, discrete and compressed
12. Three-dimensional sound - immersive audio

1. The perception of elevation

Chapter 16: Loudspeakers and Power Amplifiers

1. Consequence of Loudspeaker Impedance Variations
2. The Damping Factor Deception
3. Loudspeaker Sensitivity Ratings and Power Amplifiers
4. The Audibility of Clipping

Chapter 17: Hearing loss and hearing conservation

1. Occupational noise exposure limits
2. Non-occupational noise exposure
3. Binaural hearing is also affected
4. Some obsession can be a good thing

1. My introduction to the real world
2. Two decades of domestic loudspeakers
3. Some early professional monitor loudspeakers

1. A "Toole" monitor loudspeaker

4. Looking around and looking ahead
5. The end