Excerpts from the Book Review

"The New Stereo Soundbook" Second Edition
by Ron Streicher and F. Alton Everest

by Neil A. Shaw

published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Volume 105, no. 6, June, 1999, Pages 3005-3006

Although the first edition of "The New Stereo Soundbook " was published less than a decade ago, new release formats, as well as the growing sophistication of the listening public, provided the authors with sufficient new material to warrant, and almost require, a second edition. In its 14 chapters, the second edition of "The New Stereo Soundbook " provides a concise yet fairly comprehensive review of the history of stereo recording and reproduction, microphones and microphone techniques, binaural recording, and the limitations, and the practical uses thereof, of the human auditory system.

Production techniques, including both the practical implications as well as what can be termed philosophical implications, are covered. Various stereo microphone techniques also are described. Other concepts such as auditory spaciousness, coloration, as well as the listening environment and the optimization of same also are examined.

Depending on the sophistication of the user, the progression one makes through and of the book can be either tutorial, review, or introductory in nature. The authors have provided a compact compendium of most of the major and minor facets of stereophonic recording and human hearing and perception.

The back of the book features an Appendix which contains an introduction to as well as Blumlein's British patent "Improvements in and relating to sound-transmission, sound-recording, and sound-reproducing systems, " a reading of which is in itself illuminating and informative almost 70 years after its filing. A glossary and index follow.

The new edition is larger than the original which makes for easier reading. The second edition also has a list of references following each chapter, which, while brief, contain many useful books and articles that deal with the subject matter in greater depth.

"The New Stereo Soundbook ", second edition, is a useful reference book in itself to not only practitioners of the recording arts, but also to the end-users, that is the listeners, of recordings.

These are excerpts from the review by Neil A. Shaw, published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. The full article can be found in Volume 105, No. 6, June, 1999, Pages 3005-3006 of that publication