Pulkki V., Karjalainen M. Communication Acoustics. An Introduction to Speech, Audio and Psychoacoustics

John Wiley, 2015. — 457 p.The book Kommunikaatioakustiikka by Matti Karjalainen (1946–2010) has always been around during my research career in audio and psychoacoustics, starting from my PhD studies (1996–2001), through the periods when I was a postdoc (2001–2005), a senior researcher (2005–2012), and now during my tenure track professorship (2012–). I first used the book as a reference, as it summarized many relevant topics and provided good pointers on where to find more information. I have also been teaching the corresponding course at Aalto University (the university formerly called Helsinki University of Technology), first during Matti’s sabbatical years, then sick leaves, and regularly after his passing away. It was my and many other people’s opinion that the book was great, but it did not have a counterpart written in English. Matti himself knew this, and he worked on a translation, a of which he completed about 30% in 2002, including the preface that follows.
For a long time I thought that I should finish Matti’s work, as it would benefit people in the fields of audio and speech. However, I also understood that it would be quite a hard job. The final motivation came from my university, which stated that all MSc-level teaching should have course material in English as well, starting from autumn 2015. So, in autumn 2013, I decided to complete the book. To ensure that I would really do it, I proposed the book to Wiley, since I understood that I needed a deadline. I also thought that international distribution would benefit the propagation of the book. The book project meant a period of 10 months where I worked so much that I felt that my hands were stuck permanently to my laptop.
The book grew by about 30% from the original Finnish book, as I added quite a bit more material on audio techniques and updated many parts of the book. Consequently, the subject matter of the book might be too large for a single-semester course. Teachers are encouraged to leave some chapters out, as the whole book might be too much information to be digested in one go. I shall be updating the companion web page of this book with sound examples and other material to help teachers of such courses.How to Study and Develop Communication Acoustics
Physics of Sound
Signal Processing and Signals
Electroacoustics and Responses of Audio Systems
Human Voice
Musical Instruments and Sound Synthesis
Physiology and Anatomy of Hearing
The Approach and Methodology of Psychoacoustics
Basic Function of Hearing
Basic Psychoacoustic Quantities
Further Analysis in Hearing
Spatial Hearing
Auditory Modelling
Sound Reproduction
Time–Frequency-domain Processing and Coding of Audio
Speech Technologies
Sound Quality
Other Audio Applications
Technical Audiology