Linear Systems and Signals (The Oxford Series in Electrical and Computer Engineering)

Rating:
Summary: A good book.
Review: "A good book in this area is badly needed. This book comes close."

Rating:
Summary: It is the best text I have seen so far.
Review: "It is the best text I have seen so far... I was very impressed with the book... It is written very well and stands unique among other texts in its detailed examples and consistent intuitive discussions of the concepts and mathematical tools introduced throughout."

Rating:
Summary: This book stands head and shoulders above the rest.
Review: "This book stands head and shoulders above the rest of the books in the field... A pedagogically sound approach... I like the author's style of writing. All the chapters are uniformly well written and reflect the author's experience in teaching the subject to students with varying degrees of interest and abilities. He recognizes the common source of student difficulty and addresses each one."

Rating:
Summary: This is truly an excellent book.
Review: "This is truly an excellent book...Lathi's writing is of high caliber...I believe the strongest point of the book is prof Lathi's ability to describe very difficult material in a very clear and simple way."

Rating:
Summary: Why didn't I have this in college?
Review: Having studied this subject some years ago, the associate text left massive gaps between what is purely mathematical and what is truly practical for those whose future includes evolving from an electrical engineering student to a practicing engineer. This book, however rudimentary, is written with pedagogy, with no intent to be sesquipedalian in a mathematical context, which i find is often done to impress colleagues in the teaching of such subjects. Evolution, a word this author understands. I would have wished the author of my college text would look it up.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent textbook
Review: Lathi's book is an excellent, easy-to-read and easy-to-understand text on systems and signals. He spends a lot of time explaining in-depth examples, doing so without assuming the student has insight he or she probably does not-a common problem in other textbooks. Lathi goes out of his way to explain every nuance, greatly helping the learning processs

Unlike most other textbooks, this one is easy to read, without a glut of technical jargon, or pages and pages of mathematical formulae without text explaining where the author is heading. Lathi also includes a very comprehensive background section, polishing and reviewing the mathematical techniques necessary for solving the problems. It is handy to have this in one book, rather than require trigonometry, matrix algebra, and differential equations books at the standby for review.

One complaint is that this book does not have solutions to some of the homework problems, helping with additional study. This isn't quite the problem it is in other books since the examples are very thorough and insightful.

Simply put, not only is this probably the best textbook on systems and signals, it is one of the best textbooks I have ever used.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent textbook
Review: Lathi's book is an excellent, easy-to-read and easy-to-understand text on systems and signals. He spends a lot of time explaining in-depth examples, doing so without assuming the student has insight he or she probably does not-a common problem in other textbooks. Lathi goes out of his way to explain every nuance, greatly helping the learning processs

Unlike most other textbooks, this one is easy to read, without a glut of technical jargon, or pages and pages of mathematical formulae without text explaining where the author is heading. Lathi also includes a very comprehensive background section, polishing and reviewing the mathematical techniques necessary for solving the problems. It is handy to have this in one book, rather than require trigonometry, matrix algebra, and differential equations books at the standby for review.

One complaint is that this book does not have solutions to some of the homework problems, helping with additional study. This isn't quite the problem it is in other books since the examples are very thorough and insightful.

Simply put, not only is this probably the best textbook on systems and signals, it is one of the best textbooks I have ever used.

Rating:
Summary: One of the finest books I've seen
Review: The author is really solid. He writes his text carefully. You won't find a higher quality, more coherent book on the subject when it comes to systems. The best part is the fist half, the first 6 chapters on system analysis.

The second half, signal analysis, is also quite good, but a bit harder to understand and follow than the first half. It is still far better than just about every other book out there... except for Peter Kraniauskas' book, "Transforms in Signals and Systems," which is the best choice for understanding signal analysis. I highly recommend getting both Lathi's book and Peter's book if you can afford it.

If you can only afford one book, you are a first time student in systems and signals, or you are interested mainly in circuits, filters, transfer functions, frequency and phase responses and so forth, go with Lathi's book.

If you can only afford one book, and you are interested in DSP with Fourier analysis, and discrete Fourier analysis, as well as spectrum analysis in general, go with Peter Kraniauskas' book.

In Summary:
If you are in a class called "Systems and Circuits" or something like that, get Lathi's book.

If you are in a class called "Discrete Time Signals and Systems" or "Frequency Analysis", go with Peter's book.

Rating:
Summary: THE FINEST SIGNAL BOOK I'VE EVER SEEN
Review: This book without a doubt is a masterpiece when it comes to studying systems and signals. The author does a brilliant job of explaining the concepts. When I took this course the book that my university used was so pathetic I couldn't make out anything from it. But when I purchased lathi's book as an extra aid my scores in tests, exams and homeworks started to skyrocket. I came very close to getting an A- for the course and largely the credit goest to this Lathi's book on systems and signals. Certainly worth the extra investment!

Rating:
Summary: I'm keeping this book!
Review: This is one of the few highly readable textbooks I own. I sit down and read the narrative of the author without instantly falling asleep.

This fourth edition features two big new additions: expanded MATLAB instruction and a comprehensive review chapter. This review chapter refreshes the reader on topics essential to understanding concepts throughout the book. Complex numbers, sinusoids, matrices, partial fraction expansion (which is repeated ad nauseam throughout the text) and more are all throughly taught in this review chapter, which makes up 67 of the book's 900+ pages. Do be warned: this thick book will eat up space in your bag.

The new MATLAB sections were authored by my professor, Dr. Roger Green. It was amusing to read his foreword because his tone on paper is identical to his lectures.

If you find yourself assigned lots of MATLAB work, I only hope you have a professor as knowledgeable in it as Dr. Green. Otherwise you may be in for some confusion; I'm glad I had access to the author! Overall, the MATLAB section is well-done, and the author states it's light-years better than previous versions. I really did improve my MATLAB skills while using this book.

I am choosing to keep this book for future reference and not sell it back to the school or to next semester signals students. This is the best testimony I can give to the effectiveness of this book. Thankfully, I had a very thorough teacher who covered the topics in good detail. However, numerous times he simply said, "read the book, it does a better job at explaining than I could do." The MATLAB sections and the readability factor will keep this book on my shelf for many years.