Customer Reviews

Understanding Digital Signal Processing (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are considering studying digital signal processing for the first time, I would strongly suggest studying this book in conjunction with the Schaum's outline on digital signal processing, and then going on to a more formal text, such as "Digital Signal Processing: Principles, Algorithms and Applications" by Proakis. This book uses and explains the required background mathematics, with instructive diagrams shown throughout. The author also bothers to explain to the reader the "whys" of digital signal processing. For example, the book even takes the time to explain to the reader the reason that you would want to filter digitally in the first place. All of the basics are covered, including the discrete Fourier Transform, Finite and Infinite Impulse Response filters, the Fast Fourier Transform, and a unique chapter on digital signal processing tricks including data windowing tricks, frequency translation without multiplication, and real-time DC removal. Particularly helpful is that filter design methods are broken down algorithmically into numbered steps with the associated equations. Complete design examples of these methods are also shown to hammer home the concept. Throughout the book, the author assumes the audience is an engineer that, in the end, wants to use this information to build something useful, not to sit through one derivation after another.

I am an engineer who has read many books, good and bad, obfuscating and illuminating, and concise and lengthy. This is the best by far on the complex (double entendre intentional) subject of DSP. His appendices alone are worth the price of the book. I wish every course on DSP used this text.

OK, let me first start out by saying that I am a little biased here since I helped review the new edition, but this is a fantastic book. While this book isn't a total replacement for the standard DSP tomes like Oppenheim and Schafer, this is a text that all DSP engineers should own.

The second edition expands on the strong points of the first. The book is written by an engineer for other engineers. The topics are accessible to readers, while not being watered down.

Less understood, but extremely important topics such as quadrature processing and Hilbert transforms have expanded coverage in this edition.

The best improvement to this edition is the vastly expanded chapter on DSP Tricks. The tricks are practical applications of DSP theory. These tricks usually are not taught in school, and are often not well known. The number of pages devoted to tricks has doubled to over 100, and unlike other books, cover a broad range of topics. Application areas cover audio processing, digital communications, simulation, analysis, and others.

In summary, you will not be disappointed with this book.

I used this book in conjunction with proakis and manolakis.The book may lack the mathematical rigour but provides one of the finest introduction to DSP.I used it very often during my coursework and then turned to the difficult sections of proakis,the material there was then more revelatory. The fourth chapter on FFT is a case in point,Cooley Tukey radix algorithms become a lot easier to pick up from proakis after having gone through this book.Though many might disagree at having this as a text for a course because of its distinctly informal appraoch, it remains a valuable companion and for someone picking up the threads of DSP this should surely be one of the first choices amongst others.Strongly recommended.

Modern, gentle, readable, practical, serious, complete. So many other DSP books drown in their own mathematics, or gloss over subjects confusing to the author. The introduction to Hilbert transforms is worth the price of the entire book. Required reading for professional DSP programmers.

This book allowed a middle aged musician whose last math course is a distant memory to implement custom FFT routines and IIR filters for musical applications. Lyons combines crystal clear writing with an uncanny ability to anticipate where extra explanation is needed. His frequent "Let's pause a moment to see where we are going..." interjections are perfectly timed moments to relax and regroup before plunging ahead. Highly recommended!

This is a fabulous introduction to DSP, by far the best I have ever read. It explains concepts without throwing equations and math at the reader. The tips and tricks section is also great and I have already found some useful ones. While not providing the depth of a reference book I will always have it on my shelf for when I truly need to understand a topic.

I wish I had this book when I took my discrete systems class in college. Maybe then I would have understood what the professor was trying, but failed, to teach us. Thanks to Lyon's book, I now am beginning to understand how to use the FFT to actually analyze a real signal. I understood FIR filters pretty well but the book's helping me a lot to understand how to use the Z transform to analyze IIR filters. The book doesn't just give you the equations, he explains what they mean and that's what I like about the book. I am even beginning to grasp some of the DSP Tricks in Chapter 13. I highly recommend this book to anyone trying to learn digital signal processing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to Richard Lyons for "Understanding
Digital Signal Processing", both editions. I had the great pleasure to
use and learn from the 1st edition about 5 years ago. At that time, I
had the overwhelming urge to convey my appreciation for the wonderful
work. Now that the 2nd edition is out, there is even more reason to
express how much I enjoyed and still enjoy those works.

In particular, the topics are spot on (eg, I needed to learn about CIC
Decimation filters), but most importantly, the exposition is so very
clear and so easy to understand: each step in the progression is made
obvious -- no "and then the magic happens" or "left as an exercise to
the reader" for the important stuff.

The result is an EXCELLENT EXPOSITION. The care and the craft of
carefully showing the intermediate steps makes it real and concrete.
And it is done with a beautiful balance of intuition, observation,
analysis, and math. Why sling equations around when a simple graph
makes things clear? The equations are there, but the pictures are the
teaching tools. Other books discuss the topics. Richard Lyons's books
illuminate the topics.

I'm pleased to be able to purchase these books, and happy that Richard
is being rewarded (getting royalties, for he is DSP royalty) for his
achievements.

DSP authors often bombard readers with equations and lack any genuine explanation and "feeling" for what they represent.

Lyons tries to avoid this by limiting equations and providing more explanation.

The problem and annoying thing about his writing, however, is that he provides almost no structure or conciseness. Often he rambles on aimlessly on topics that really do not require much explanation. Like beating a dead dog over and over again, the reader is frustrated glancing over the pages to see when he will actually get to something useful.

And this is where the trouble begins. Many times in introducing new topics, he does not provide important details at the beginning but rather drops them off like bombs in mid sentences on ramblings. For example, when introducing the topic of DFT's, he provides the equation for DFT but rather than right away explain the fact that X(m) represents the frequency component of the signal at mfs/N he mentions nothing until two pages later in an unrelated ramble! Such way of explanations are fine if you are attentive and read every word carefully, but they can also frustrate readers.

Generally, not a bad book and better than most DSP books out there, but still lacking in presentation and conciseness.