ABSTRACT

So far in this book we have considered acoustics and psychoacoustics as separate topics. However, real applications often require the combination of the two because although the psychoacoustics tells us how we might perceive the sound, we need the acoustic description of sound to help create physical, or electronic, solutions to the problem. The purpose of this chapter is to give the reader a fl avor of the many applications that make use of acoustics and psychoacoustics in combination. Of necessity these vignettes are brief and do not cover all the possible applications. However, we have tried to cover areas that we feel are important, and of interest. The level of detail also varies but, in all cases, we have tried to provide enough detail for the reader to be able to read, and understand, the more advanced texts and references that we provide, and any that the reader may discover themselves, for further reading. The rest of this chapter will cover listening room design, audiometry, psychoacoustic testing, fi ltering and equalization, public address systems, noise reducing headphones, acoustical social control devices, and last, but by no means least, audio coding systems.