This illustrated guide to 100 of the world's most important concert halls and opera houses examines their architecture and engineering and discusses their acoustical quality as judged by conductors and music critics. The descriptions and photographs will serve as a valuable guide for today's peripatetic performers and music lovers. With technical discussions relegated to appendices, the book can be read with pleasure by anyone interested in musical performance. The photographs (specially commissioned for this book) and architectural drawings (all to the same scale) together with modern acoustical data on each of the halls provide a rich and unmatched resource on the design of halls for presenting musical performances. Together with the technical appendices, the data and drawings will serve as an invaluable reference for architects and engineers involved in the design of spaces for the performance of music.

This illustrated guide to 100 of the world's most important concert halls and opera houses examines their architecture and engineering and discusses their acoustical quality as judged by conductors and music critics. The descriptions and photographs will serve as a valuable guide for today's peripatetic performers and music lovers. With technical discussions relegated to appendices, the book can be read with pleasure by anyone interested in musical performance. The photographs (specially commissioned for this book) and architectural drawings (all to the same scale) together with modern acoustical data on each of the halls provide a rich and unmatched resource on the design of halls for presenting musical performances. Together with the technical appendices, the data and drawings will serve as an invaluable reference for architects and engineers involved in the design of spaces for the performance of music. Leo Beranek is an internationally recognized authority in acoustics who has consulted on the design of dozens of important auditoriums around the World. He has received the highest honors of the Acoustical Society of America and of the Audio Engineering Society.||Some praise for the previous edition:||"No one has done more to unlock for musicians the scientific mysteries of acoustics and for acousticians an appreciation of the aesthetic experience of musicians and listeners."|- Philip Gossett, Professor of Music, University of Chicago||"Directed in large part to musicians and concert goers, it is as easy to read as it is informative . . . the descriptions [of concert halls] are a terrific asset to visiting conductors."|- Yuzo Toyama, Conductor||"Provides an invaluable resource for the understanding and design of music facilities."|- I.M. Pei, Architect

Acoustics: Sound Fields, Transducers and Vibration, Second Edition guides readers through the basics of sound fields, the laws governing sound generation, radiation, and propagation, and general terminology. Specific sections cover microphones (electromagnetic, electrostatic, and ribbon), earphones, and horns, loudspeaker enclosures, baffles and transmission lines, miniature applications (e.g. MEMS microphones and micro speakers in tablets and smart phones), sound in enclosures of all sizes, such as school rooms, offices, auditoriums and living rooms, and fluid-structure interaction. Numerical examples and summary charts are given throughout the text to make the material easily applicable to practical design. New to this edition: A chapter on electrostatic loudspeakers A chapter on vibrating surfaces (membranes, plates, and shells) Readers will find this to be a valuable resource for experimenters, acoustical consultants, and to those who anticipate being engineering designers of audio equipment. It will serve as both a text for students in engineering departments and as a valuable reference for practicing engineers.