I take great pleasure in learning new things and although I normally prefer to learn from practice, I also appreciate that there is no substitute for a good book. Unfortunately, we audiophiles think that because we hear something that this must be the ‘truth’. However, not many of us have any understanding of psychoacoustics and how easy it is to fool our perception. This is why, even this day and age we still have businesses that sell audio-voodoo products that supposed to make you system sounds better…
Some of the books and papers listed below are really dry and tough to read, as most of academic materials are. However, if you were to only read one thing, I would wholeheartedly recommend reading the Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms by Floyd E. Toole. It is surprisingly digestible and contains a wealth of knowledge about loudspeakers and how we hear.
Books
Briggs, G. A. (1990) Loudspeakers They Why & How of Good Reproduction. 4th edt. Leeds, Audio Amateur Publications, Inc.
Colloms, M. (1997) High Performance Loudspeakers. 5th edt. John Wiley.
Everest, F. A. and Pohlmann, K.C. (2009) Master Handbook of Acoustics. 5th edt. New York, McGraw Hill Professional.
Lesniewicz, M. (2014) Domowe Systemy Audio. 1st edt. Legionowo, Wydawnictwo BTC.
Toole, F. E. (2018) Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms. 3rd edt. New York, Routledge.
Journals
Cohen, M.A., Horowitz, T.S. and Wolfe, J.M. (2009) ‘Auditory recognition memory is inferior to visual recognition memory’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106 (14) [online]. Available at: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/14/6008 (Accessed: 10th January 2021)
Fletcher, H. and Munson W.A. (1933) ‘Loudness, Its Definition, Measurements and Calculations‘, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 5, p82-108.
Nickerson, R.S. (1998) ‘Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises’, Review of General Psychology, 2 (2), p175–220.
Nisbett, R.E. and Wilson, T.D. (1977) ‘The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35 (4), p250–256.
Robinson, D.W. and Dadson, R.S. (1956) ‘A Re-Determination of the Equal-Loudness Relations for Pure Tones’, British Journal of Applied Psychology, 7, p166-181.