Customer Reviews

Principles of Digital Audio

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First off, this book is in its fifth edition, and Amazon has lumped together reviews of all editions of this book. So the oldest review shown, written in 1998, is speaking of the 3rd edition, and reviews written prior to 2005 are talking about the 4th edition.
This book is more about the principles of digital audio hardware design than anything. The author, also a college professor, starts with the absolute beginning and the binary number system, sampling, quantization, aliasing, and dither and then moves into all of the topics that you need to design and analyze modern digital audio systems. However, if the information in the first two chapters is news to you, chances are the rest of the book will be over your head. The book is full of flow charts, frequency response diagrams, and detailed block diagrams of actual systems. What it is lacking in is any kind of signal processing mathematics to explain the detailed theory behind what is being covered. There is a chapter entitled "Digital Signal Processing", but it barely introduces and defines the terms. It does show some assembly code for performing some simple filtering tasks, though, but that's the extent of the coverage. If you didn't know DSP before you read this chapter, you certainly won't know it after you read this chapter. The book does a pretty good job of discussing some of the more popular audio standards including MP3. I think this book is best suited for someone with an electronics/electrical engineering background that already knows the theory of digital signal processing and wants to apply that knowledge to the actual design and analysis of digital audio processing systems. Amazon shows the table of contents from the 4th edition, so I show the detailed table of contents for the 5th edition here:
Sound and Numbers
Fundamental Theory
Digital Audio Recording
Digital Audio Reproduction
Error Correction
Digital Audio Tape
Optical Disc Storage
Compact Disc and SACD
Recordable CD
Interconnection
Perceptual Coding: Theory and Applications
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2
MP3 Codec
MPEG-4 and AAC
Psychoacoustic Models
Surround Sound Coding
Lossless Coding
DVD-Video and DVD-Audio
Recordable DVD
HD-DVD and Blu-ray
Minidisc
Desktop Audio
Network Audio
Downloadable and Streaming Internet Audio
File Formats
Digital Rights Management
Watermarking and Encryption
MPEG-7
Digital Radio and TV Broadcasting
HD Radio
Satellite Radio
Digital Audio Workstations
Digital Signal Processing: Theory and Applications
Sigma Delta Conversion and Noise Shaping

An excellent intermediate survey of the digital audio landscape. This text covers conversion, signal processing, channel coding and storage as well as current implementations of the technology. Good illustrations are included for visual reinforcement. Pohlmann's breezy writing style guides the reader from basic physics through dense theoretical discussion to practical examples. A freshman college background in physics and mathematics is useful though not essential.

This book is an excellent primer for current technology in digital audio systems. He keeps the obscure mathematics to a minimum, and introduces you to the great amount of technique available in the field today. I found this book, 1st edition, in the library -- and soon after bought the latest edition. An excellent value for the money, and useful to anyone trying to keep up with the digital techniques.

The author does a great job in covering all broad aspects of digital audio. The perceptual coding chapter is specially useful in that the author gives mathematical models that you can implement for your work (equations related to masking, bark conversion, spreading functions, thresholds, etc). My only concer with this book is that too often the information is just simply thrown at you, the reading does not flow well and sometimes its seems like the topics are out of place, or at least, they could have been transitioned more smoothly.

Professor Pohlmann tried to frighten us in the 1995 edition, he said: I promise I will never write a fourth edition of this title. After laping up the third edition in two woderful weeks, I had to wait for the decision. In 1999 I was hopelessly desperate, but Mr. Pohlmann left a "loophole in (his) vow", as he claims. So, a new gift came to us. Thanks to him, his dedication, and his talent, audio and electronics engineers have a text that covers the totality of the current science of digital audio. For those who read the previous editions, some obvious changes will come up. Some technologies are dead, because it is impossible to resurrect technnologies that the market or the customers have killed (imagine a book about vinile LPs or Betamax VCRs), and other technologies are very alive. Some new features you will find in this edition: DVD (finally an understandable treaty is in our hands), Internet Audio (very topical), new developments in DSP, and some changes made inside previously written chapters (i.e.: the Hoffmann Coding now is in the DVD chapter). For those who have not read the previous editions, this is a very good start in the science of digital audio. If you read the first four chapters very carefully, you are ready to read every single book on the subject that might fall in your hands. I used to recommend the third edition in my college course at Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria. Now my students are encouraged to acquire this new edition, which is indeed the main textbook for my course. I still think that we need a spanish translation of this book.

Mr. Pohlmann's book is the most encompassing treatise on Digital Audio that is available today. As an employee at Dolby, I can tell you that you won't find an engineer at Dolby who does not own a copy of Digital Audio. The book can be used in many different ways. Whether you are an expert or a novice, this book will come in handy. I would equate this book to drinking directly from the source of a mountain spring. Don't think about it, just buy it.

This book seems to be comprehensive in its treatment of digital audio but unfortunately much of it is simply cut and paste from more technical articles with little attempt being made to digest and explain the material in a more accessible fashion. For example the material on error correction on CD's hits the reader over the head with equations that come out of the blue and the reader couldn't hope to understand in a month of Sundays. The material on analog to digital conversion is much the same.
Nonetheless this book serves as a compilation of relevant topics in digital audio but fails to provide the reader with the intuition to really internalize the material.

This book really deserves to be called 'The Ultimate Digital Audio Bible'. It has anything and everything. From basic DSP to video, it's not limited to audio topics. When I read the reviews, I would not hope to read the book from the start, just use it as a reference to explain specific standard highlights. But this book is very readable. I loved it. If you are a computer eng. major who wants to dwell in DSP in any field, this book is great. I don't agree with the prejudice that the book is not very readable. There are sections that are more difficult, but the author explains things in very good analogies and examples. I must mention that I'm a comp. eng. a few months away from MS, so I may not be doing justice to the average reader. But I would never expect to find myself reading through that 700+ book with pleasure. Don't think, buy it. Then try and conceal this secret gem from others.

I mean it. When this book drops into your lap, you will feel the weight of it. And its Meaty! My Audio Engineering teacher told me that if you wanted to know everything about sound, then buy this book. So... I did.

I don't think I will ever understand everything in this book.... in this lifetime.... but I am glad that when I may need to.... its here in this book! All of it.

What does it cover? Everything from the Physics of Sound to the Fundamentals of Digital Audio, Recording Digital Audio, Optical Disc Media (and how that came about), Compact Discs, DVD, BluRay, Coding, Digital Signal Processing.

It is precise. It is in-depth. And its very heady and codey. Is that a word? But for school ... when i don't understand something about Sound I know this book will have it.

So, if you are a GEEK for sound, you will love this book. If you are not... well, you will know it when you get this book. Its so Meaty!

I think its a great first book for anyone wanting to know more technical details about the workings of the CD, digital audio in general, digital interfaces and some DSP.
What I like most about this book was it was easy to read and simple to understand, unlike some other books that are just plain cryptic.