I really liked the first edition of this book. The second edition is strange in a couple of ways. First, it is longer than the first edition, which is no surprise. Secondly, and surprisingly, it is about fifty do llars cheaper than the previous 1997 edition. The main things that have changed between the two editions are that this edition is more Java-centric than the last. Also, the only two chapters that have really changed much is chapter one, the introduction, due to changes in technology and equipment, and chapter nine, with its extra information on MPEG2 and MPEG4. If you already have the first edition and it doesn't bother you that you have a somewhat aged introductory chapter and you're not interested in MPEG, hold on to what you have. If you don't have this book yet, this new edition is definitely the way to go from both a quality and cost viewpoint.



This book covers, from more of an electrical engineering perspective, all aspects of digital audio signal processing in both hardware and software. Throughout the book Zolzer makes heavy use of figures and block diagrams, so to understand this book you should probably have an electrical engineering background with a previous course or experience in basic digital signal processing. Zolzer does not stop and take time to explain elementary concepts such as DFT's and Z-transforms. Computer science types might have a hard time understanding this book, since even in the algorithm portion of the book Zolzer makes heavy use of block diagrams and transfer functions to describe the various algorithms. You will not find code in this book. I particularly liked Zolzer's no-nonsense handling of room simulation and psychoacoustics. It was good to see a thorough signal processing perspective on these subjects rather than the non-mathematical recording engineer's viewpoint found in so many books. I highly recommend this book to any engineer familiar with digital signal processing who wants to see how to apply the theory to audio.