Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models (Springer Series in Information Sciences)

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Summary: Ever wanted to understand human hearing?
Review: Eberhard Zwicker was one of the great names in psychoacoustics. This book, written with his student Hugo Fastl, is an excellent introduction to psychoacoustics, and presents a modern account with a great deal of qualitative and quantitative information. The second edition has been updated by Fastl.

I would have liked to see more discussion of the relationships with the psychology of music, but there are now several good books available on this subject, especially a collection of essays edited by Diana Deutsch and another edited by Perry Cook.

Rating:
Summary: Essential for NVH
Review: Even though it may not have been his direct intent, the (mostly) empirical information presented in Zwicker's book is essential for understanding how to integrate a customers perception of sound into the design of a consumer product (such as a washing machine or an automobile, for instance). If you are interested in the engineering field of noise and vibration, or wish to make a career out of designing for noise and vibration, this book is a MUST HAVE as a professional reference. Highly, highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Be Ready to Get Hammered With Information
Review: Zwicker is a major name in Psychoacoustics. He references his own publications in the field well over 100 times in this book. This book is probably the most comprehensive collection of psychoacoustical information I have seen to date. As with all works, it starts with a description of sound and the human audiotory system, and then moves into how the two entities interact and how perception is modeled by this. The discussion is very technical, and he has an average of one graph per page. I do not recommend this book to anyone not interested in the details of how psychoacoustics evolve.
It is also nice that he includes a methods section, as one would do in a technical journal. This describes how the data that he is presenting was obtained, and adds a load of credibilty to the work. Also most of the data presented is empirical, from experiments themselves. The amount of research underlying this work is huge.
My one complaint is the pace varies a bit, but not too bad. Some parts seem fast, others seem slow. Overall however, this is a great book for technical readers. I personally found this book tremendously useful.