The Art of Sound Reproduction

Chapter 1

Introduction

In this chapter sound reproduction is outlined beginning with a short history. There are many different types of audio with differing degrees of compatibility between them and these are compared here. It is important to bear in mind that audio has many applications and the criteria for each one may be quite different. Many of the subjects introduced in this chapter will be amplified elsewhere in the book.

1.1 A short history

Accurate sound reproduction is a very young subject because it depends heavily on other enabling technologies which are themselves recent. Of these the most obvious is electronic amplification. Prior to that prospects were limited, but many of the fundamentals which we regard as modern were in place ...