The essential guide to sound reproduction, offering practical advice on the room-loudspeaker system and entire sound reproduction chain from a leading expert in the field.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
92 of 94 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In this book Floyd Toole summarizes and explains conclusions from a lifelong involvement with audio. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in factual information about loudspeakers and listening rooms, about measurements, listening observations and their practical implications. It is lucidly written in easy to understand language, extensively illustrated and referenced. It deals with the reproduction of sound - which existed in a space - inside another space. My only regret is that the potential of 2-channel playback in doing so has not been fully explored. This is understandable because the conventional box loudspeaker with its frequency dependent directivity index has been used for almost all of the observations that are discussed. In fact, the particular interaction of a box loudspeaker with the listening room makes it more difficult for our ear/brain perceptual apparatus to hear the recording venue's space and acoustics, provided that such information has been captured in the recording process. Floyd focuses on multiple loudspeaker surround sound. He considers this approach to spatial sound reproduction as much more rewarding and he provides extensive practical information for that. The book is very comprehensive and in my opinion a "must-read" for loudspeaker designers, recording and mastering engineers, room-acoustic consultants, audio reviewers and audiophiles. The book is about theory and praxis. It debunks much of the BS that seems to have permeated the audio industry and many of its customers.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Dr. Toole, with whom I worked at Harman for years, showed me this book in person at CEDIA last week, and I was quite impressed. I have not read the book in detail yet, but I have been recommending it to everyone I work with at Triad Speakers. Floyd is a wealth of practical and technical knowledge, and he communicates well to academics as well as hobbyists. He debunks myths, and has the ability to cut through the crap to what really matters. He and I have both ranted for years on the importance of the room in presenting accurate sound reproduction, and that overlooked concept will be more strongly promoted with the introduction of this book.
As good as the book appears at first glance, it stands out even more due to the paucity of printed material on the subject of speakers and rooms. The few books available are either incomplete, antiquated, or in the case of Everest, geared more toward pro sound.
This is the seminal speaker book and all us tweaks should buy it both to advance our education and because Floyd's a great guy and deserves to make a buck! Floyd, if you're reading this, I have always appreciated your contributions to our otherwise amateurish industry.
As good as the book appears at first glance, it stands out even more due to the paucity of printed material on the subject of speakers and rooms. The few books available are either incomplete, antiquated, or in the case of Everest, geared more toward pro sound.
This is the seminal speaker book and all us tweaks should buy it both to advance our education and because Floyd's a great guy and deserves to make a buck! Floyd, if you're reading this, I have always appreciated your contributions to our otherwise amateurish industry.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is excellent for anyone designing loudspeakers. It is a very nice summary of the available research and Toole does a good job of making it readable. He also does a good job of summarizing things for those who need/want to skim right to the meat. I'd encourage you to read it all of course. ;-)
The only shortcomings are more in the nature of the limitations of research. They don't give us definitive answers to many questions but that is just the nature of the beast. There is a lot of emphasis on multichannel reproduction but most of the research is applicable to any type of playback method. As mentioned above, there is not a great deal of emphasis on individual loudspeaker design choices, outside of pointing toward desirable objective characteristics of good designs. It is also a very readable summary of the information for those who are not engineers. There isn't any math necessary and you can skim over the dry areas and still get to the meat of the subject quickly.
I'd consider this necessary reading material for anyone serious about reproducing high-quality audio in small spaces (home audio sized rooms). If I were an editor of a review magazine, I'd make it required reading for anyone performing loudspeaker reviews. This isn't going to resolve the long-standing debate between objectivist/subjectivist issues but it is great reading for those on both sides of that divide.
The only shortcomings are more in the nature of the limitations of research. They don't give us definitive answers to many questions but that is just the nature of the beast. There is a lot of emphasis on multichannel reproduction but most of the research is applicable to any type of playback method. As mentioned above, there is not a great deal of emphasis on individual loudspeaker design choices, outside of pointing toward desirable objective characteristics of good designs. It is also a very readable summary of the information for those who are not engineers. There isn't any math necessary and you can skim over the dry areas and still get to the meat of the subject quickly.
I'd consider this necessary reading material for anyone serious about reproducing high-quality audio in small spaces (home audio sized rooms). If I were an editor of a review magazine, I'd make it required reading for anyone performing loudspeaker reviews. This isn't going to resolve the long-standing debate between objectivist/subjectivist issues but it is great reading for those on both sides of that divide.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mandatory reading for audiophiles, especially the well heeled
I used to count myself among these ranks, but ultimately lost interest and patience with more than one dealer, and ultimately the industry itself. Why? Read more
Published 5 days ago by John R. Smolley MD
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome book
Very detailed and illustrative book. I'm really enjoying the lecture of one of the best acoustic gurus in the industry.
Published 3 months ago by diego ivars
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very in depth analysis of acoutics
This book contained a lot more information than I needed to set up my 7.1 surround system, but all the extra information was extremely interesting and goes into the mathematics and... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Russell H. Evenhouse
4.0 out of 5 stars
Turning art into science
There's no hard and fast rule on setting up the right listening room or designing the "perfect" loudspeaker system. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Savvas Sidiropoulos
2.0 out of 5 stars
An academic exercise of little practical use
Many of the rave reviewers here are manifestly audio professionals, some doubtless friends of the author. Read more
Published 22 months ago by George Goldberg
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite audio-related book of all time
Not just for home theater enthusiasts! Any serious student of audio should own this book. Not borrow it, but own it so you can read it more than once. Read more
Published 22 months ago by David Townsend
5.0 out of 5 stars
An amazing, extremely well written essay on what is good sound
This is one of the best (if not "the best") summary of what constitutes good sound on how to get it. Read more
Published on May 18, 2011 by Francisco Huerta
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book
This is a "must read" for would-be audiophiles who really want to understand how speaker systems work in typical rooms.
Published on April 7, 2011 by Doug Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great information!
I received this book for christmas. I am the typical forum reader- Searching and reading all thing audio on the internet. Read more
Published on December 31, 2010 by W. Lord
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent resource, with one quibble
I agree with most of the other reviewers here, especially Howard Ferstler, who details the book's omission of many classic speaker designs. Read more
Published on December 29, 2010 by J. Paulsonn
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