Customer Reviews

Handbook for Sound Engineers, Third Edition

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

You MUST buy this book! Pretend you did not see the price and order this book. It is the most comprehensive book on the subject that I have ever run across. It contains more than 1550 pages of information, diagrams, schematics, and just about anything else you could ever think to need. Covers everything from Accoustic Theory to Zener Diodes (I don't know what they are either...I haven't read that far yet!). I am planning to use this as a refresher for myself (that is what my schooling is in) and for training more sound techs at my church.

Note: This is a book for intermediate to advanced level sound engineers. It would be way over a beginners head. There are a number of excellent books for beginners available through Amazon, though.

This is the best book on audio I have seen. It covers a broad range of topics in great depth.

The book goes into great detail about the following areas:
a) human hearing and calculating the acoustic properties of rooms
b) PCB-level electronic components
c) system level components
d) storage media
e) bringing all of the above together into applications

The book assumes the reader has a good foundation in electronics but explains concepts in a very unpretentious way. It's nothing like reading a scholarly journal where you constantly have to look at other articles and review textbooks to understand. If you understand the basics of electronic circuits you will understand this book without consulting other textbooks.

Every audio topic I can think of is explored in this book. If you work on anything related to audio you absolutely should not be without this reference.

I have been playing around with amplifiers and recording equipment for a while now - never had formal education in audio engineering, but I do have some electronic background. This book has helped me a lot in refining my recording techniques, my audio system itself and furthered my understanding of audio systems from microphone placement to cabling, speaker placement, phono cartridge alignment to name but a few. Whatever subject I sought advice on, this book has so far provided me with the answers. I would go as far as saying that whatever this book does not cover is not relevant to audio systems. One word of caution though, this book is not like a "cookbook". You have to have an electronic background in order to make full use of the book - as the title rightly puts it, it is intended for engineers.

In its first edition, this book referred to itself as "the new Audio Cyclopedia," as it was conceived as an update to Howard Tremaine's exhaustive reference of 1959, updated in 1969. Back in the mid-1980's, I read the first edition of Ballou's Handbook for Sound Engineers cover-to-cover, finding nearly all of it to be essential information for any audio professional. As one might expect from a book "written by a committee," some chapters were more engaging than others. The chapter on "Consoles and Systems" by Steve Dove was so entertaining, while sacrificing nothing in the way of technical substance, that it changed my thinking about what technical writing could be. While his chapter in the latest edition is somewhat more subdued, I could not be more satisfied with the thoroughness of the updating to represent today's state of the art technology. That statement also applies to the entire book - this is not a book that lives in the past, rests on past achievement, or rides on reputation.

Suffice it to say that the latest edition is always my first recommendation for a technical reference book on audio. It belongs on the bookshelf of any facility audio department, as well as any serious audio practitioner in any of the specialties - live sound, recording, broadcast, theatre, etc. The world would have a lot less bad sound in it if more audio practitioners took seriously their responsibility to learn their technical fundamentals, and this book is one of the best places to start on the quest to achieve technical competence in audio.

yess i'm very happy with this book is a kind of enciclopedia of sound engeneering and is very updated to now years...

thank u very much amazon

This book is a must-have for anyone serious about audio technology and sound reproduction. Almost all imaginable subjects are covered, making it an excellent reference.
The problem with this book, though, is that it is a collection of articles ("chapters") written by various experts around the world. It appears however that no effort was made by the editor to get spread and depth of content in line. For example, the chapter on transformers is very detailed, with good references at the end, yet the chapter on amplifiers is very weak and gives no references whatsoever.
Also, this book appears to be more written towards the recording community, and covers only a few topics relative to live sound reinforcement. Finally, there is virtually no discussion on sound effects processors.

I would have to agree with everything R. Bonne says. It is a very comprehensive work, and it is good for looking up standards and reference stuff, but it is kind of oddly written. It goes into some subjects with great detail, while others are mentioned briefly with a feeling that they could just as well have skipped that chapter.

If you have a special interest in some part of the audio world I would advise to get a book on that subject only. It will be more complete, more coherent and in the end better reading.
This is a good book to have on the shelf, for looking stuff up. But that is also where my copy spend most of it's time, on the shelf...

That said; I would probably buy it again only for the transformer chapter. (But that chapter can be downloaded for free from the Jensen transformer website)

I do not however agree with W. Mann who says: "Of Antiquarian Interest Only!". If you think that all you need to have a studio is a soundcard and a computer, then you have never worked in a professional studio where electronics and acoustics are very much apart of your work day, and in this book there is lots of information about those subjects.

This book is primarily of value if you are connecting antique equipment or trying to resurrect out-of-date gear for which manuals are no longer available. You're not likely to find a "Zener Diode" in anything made in this century and info on phonograph cartridges is only useful to a group of dedicated specialists.

Casual users who want the best out of a modern sound system should see books by Bill Gibson and other authors who discuss CDs and digital audio processing.