Concepts in Systems and Signals

Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to signals and filtering
Review: (I'm not sure what book the previous reviewer was reading when he refers to the "authors" -- Sherrick is the lone author). This book is clear, simple, and filled with worked examples. It succeeds at its modest goal of preparing students for upper-division specialty courses. Very clear explanations and applications of the s-plane and phasors to signal analysis. A real gem if you are interested in learning how to perform simple and practical signal analysis and filter design without getting bogged down in abstract mathematical theory.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to signals and filtering
Review: On a superficial level, this book looks good: it covers most (if not all) relevant topics, has MATLAB sections, and a range of difficulty on the problems. The issues arise in that the quality of the information is horrid.

The presentation of the information leaves a great deal to be desired: I often think that the authors are intentionally trying to be obtuse by their use of terminology that they don't define and by providing only a bare minimum of effort in their examples which are briefly skimmed over and not up to par with their questions at the end of each section.

It is impossible to teach yourself from this book without a good set of lecture notes to aid you. There is very little information actually present and what is presented tends to be non-comprehensive in quality. The author has a tendancy to skip over the mathematical foundation behind what is going on.

The mathematical foundations are, in fact, not really covered at all.
The matlab sections are of similar quality: skimming over the examples and setting information without explaining the whys and the wherefores.
I found that the questions at the end of the sections were good, but that is about the extent of it.

Rating:
Summary: Very little redeaming value
Review: On a superficial level, this book looks good: it covers most (if not all) relevant topics, has MATLAB sections, and a range of difficulty on the problems. The issues arise in that the quality of the information is horrid.

The presentation of the information leaves a great deal to be desired: I often think that the authors are intentionally trying to be obtuse by their use of terminology that they don't define and by providing only a bare minimum of effort in their examples which are briefly skimmed over and not up to par with their questions at the end of each section.

It is impossible to teach yourself from this book without a good set of lecture notes to aid you. There is very little information actually present and what is presented tends to be non-comprehensive in quality. The author has a tendancy to skip over the mathematical foundation behind what is going on.

The mathematical foundations are, in fact, not really covered at all.
The matlab sections are of similar quality: skimming over the examples and setting information without explaining the whys and the wherefores.
I found that the questions at the end of the sections were good, but that is about the extent of it.