User Guide

Sound System Design Reference Manual
Preface to the 1999 Edition:
This third edition of JBL Professional’s Sound System Design Reference Manual is presented in a new
graphic format that makes for easier reading and study. Like its predecessors, it presents in virtually their
original 1977 form George Augspurger’s intuitive and illuminating explanations of sound and sound system
behavior in enclosed spaces. The section on systems and case studies has been expanded, and references
to JBL components have been updated.
The fundamentals of acoustics and sound system design do not change, but system implementation
improves in its effectiveness with ongoing developments in signal processing, transducer refinement, and
front-end flexibility in signal routing and control.
As stated in the Preface to the 1986 edition: The technical competence of professional dealers and
sound contractors is much higher today than it was when the Sound Workshop manual was originally
introduced. It is JBL’s feeling that the serious contractor or professional dealer of today is ready to move away
from simply plugging numbers into equations. Instead, the designer is eager to learn what the equations really
mean, and is intent on learning how loudspeakers and rooms interact, however complex that may be. It is for
the student with such an outlook that this manual is intended.
John Eargle
January 1999
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