This is an unparalleled modern handbook reflecting the richly interdisciplinary nature of acoustics edited by an acknowledged master in the field. The handbook reviews the most important areas of the subject, with emphasis on current research. The authors of the various chapters are all experts in their fields. Each chapter is richly illustrated with figures and tables. The latest research and applications are incorporated throughout, including computer recognition and synthesis of speech, physiological acoustics, diagnostic imaging and therapeutic applications and acoustical oceanography. An accompanying CD-ROM contains audio and video files.

This acoustics handbook for mechanical and architectural applications is a translation of the German standard work on the subject. It not only describes the state of art of engineering acoustics but also gives practical help to engineers for solving acoustic problems. It deals with the origin, the transmission and the methods of abatement of air-borne and structure-borne sound of different kinds, from traffic to machinery and flow induced sound.

This textbook provides a unified approach to acoustics and vibration suitable for use in advanced undergraduate and first-year graduate courses on vibration and fluids. The book includes thorough treatment of vibration of harmonic oscillators, coupled oscillators, isotropic elasticity, and waves in solids including the use of resonance techniques for determination of elastic moduli. Drawing on 35 years of experience teaching introductory graduate acoustics at the Naval Postgraduate School and Penn State, the author presents a hydrodynamic approach to the acoustics of sound in fluids that provides a uniform methodology for analysis of lumped-element systems and wave propagation that can incorporate attenuation mechanisms and complex media. This view provides a consistent and reliable approach that can be extended with confidence to more complex fluids and future applications. Understanding Acoustics opens with a mathematical introduction that includes graphing and statistical uncertainty, followed by five chapters on vibration and elastic waves that provide important results and highlight modern applications while introducing analytical techniques that are revisited in the study of waves in fluids covered in Part II. A unified approach to waves in fluids (i.e., liquids and gases) is based on a mastery of the hydrodynamic equations. Part III demonstrates extensions of this view to nonlinear acoustics. Engaging and practical, this book is a must-read for graduate students in acoustics and vibration as well as active researchers interested in a novel approach to the material.

This corrected version of the landmark 1981 textbook introduces the physical principles and theoretical basis of acoustics with deep mathematical rigor, concentrating on concepts and points of view that have proven useful in applications such as noise control, underwater sound, architectural acoustics, audio engineering, nondestructive testing, remote sensing, and medical ultrasonics. Since its publication, this text has been used as part of numerous acoustics-related courses across the world, and continues to be used widely today. During its writing, the book was fine-tuned according to insights gleaned from a broad range of classroom settings. Its careful design supports students in their pursuit of a firm foundation while allowing flexibility in course structure. The book can easily be used in single-term or full-year graduate courses and includes problems and answers. This rigorous and essential text is a must-have for any practicing or aspiring acoustician.

The Springer Handbook of Auditory Research presents a series of comprehensive and synthetic reviews of the fundamental topics in modern auditory research. The v- umes are aimed at all individuals with interests in hearing research including advanced graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and clinical investigators. The volumes are intended to introduce new investigators to important aspects of hearing science and to help established investigators to better understand the fundamental theories and data in fields of hearing that they may not normally follow closely. Each volume presents a particular topic comprehensively, and each serves as a synthetic overview and guide to the literature. As such, the chapters present neither exhaustive data reviews nor original research that has not yet appeared in pe- reviewed journals. The volumes focus on topics that have developed a solid data and conceptual foundation rather than on those for which a literature is only beg- ning to develop. New research areas will be covered on a timely basis in the series as they begin to mature.

Roughly defined as any property other than pitch, duration, and loudness that allows two sounds to be distinguished, timbre is a foundational aspect of hearing. The remarkable ability of humans to recognize sound sources and events (e.g., glass breaking, a friend’s voice, a tone from a piano) stems primarily from a capacity to perceive and process differences in the timbre of sounds. Timbre raises many important issues in psychology and the cognitive sciences, musical acoustics, speech processing, medical engineering, and artificial intelligence. Current research on timbre perception unfolds along three main fronts: On the one hand, researchers explore the principal perceptual processes that orchestrate timbre processing, such as the structure of its perceptual representation, sound categorization and recognition, memory for timbre, and its ability to elicit rich semantic associations, as well as the underlying neural mechanisms. On the other hand, timbre is studied as part of specific scenarios, including the perception of the human voice, as a structuring force in music, as perceived with cochlear implants, and through its role in affecting sound quality and sound design. Finally, computational acoustic models are sought through prediction of psychophysical data, physiologically inspired representations, and audio analysis-synthesis techniques. Along these three scientific fronts, significant breakthroughs have been achieved during the last decade. This volume will be the first book dedicated to a comprehensive and authoritative presentation of timbre perception and cognition research and the acoustic modeling of timbre. The volume will serve as a natural complement to the SHAR volumes on the basic auditory parameters of Pitch edited by Plack, Oxenham, Popper, and Fay, and Loudness by Florentine, Popper, and Fay. Moreover, through the integration of complementary scientific methods ranging from signal processing to brain imaging, the book has the potential to leverage new interdisciplinary synergies in hearing science. For these reasons, the volume will be exceptionally valuable to various subfields of hearing science, including cognitive auditory neuroscience, psychoacoustics, music perception and cognition, but may even exert significant influence on fields such as musical acoustics, music information retrieval, and acoustic signal processing. It is expected that the volume will have broad appeal to psychologists, neuroscientists, and acousticians involved in research on auditory perception and cognition. Specifically, this book will have a strong impact on hearing researchers with interest in timbre and will serve as the key publication and up-to-date reference on timbre for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, as well as established scholars.