MASTERING SOUND & VISION

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MASTERING SOUND AND VISION — COMPLETE CHAPTER LIST

Building a Stereo System

159 chapters across 7 volumes. Every one of them, nothing curated.

The bundle page shows a sample chosen to make the case quickly. This page is the opposite of that — the complete, unedited contents of every volume, exactly as they appear inside the books, for anyone who’d rather judge the whole thing for themselves before deciding.

VOLUME IFoundations
13 chapters
1. What Sound Is
2. Human Hearing
3. Psychoacoustics
4. Loudspeaker Physics
5. Room Acoustics
6. Bass Behaviour
7. Stereo Imaging
8. Dolby Atmos and Immersive Audio
9. Digital Audio
10. Amplifiers
11. Digital-to-Analogue Conversion
12. Measurements
13. Putting the Foundation Together
VOLUME IIPractical Optimisation
22 chapters
Foundations of Practical Optimisation
1. Optimisation Before Upgrade
2. Knowing Your Room Before Changing Your Room
3. Optimising Stereo Loudspeaker Placement
4. Optimising a Home Cinema
5. The Listening Position
Measurement and Low-Frequency Optimisation
6. Before You Measure
7. Measuring Reality: An Introduction to REW
8. The Measurement Chain
9. The Art and Science of Bass Management
10. Subwoofer Placement
11. Phase, Polarity and Time Alignment
12. Level Matching and System Calibration
13. Understanding Frequency Response
14. Time-Domain Analysis: Waterfall Plots, Decay and Energy Storage
15. Impulse Response and Early Reflections
Digital Room Correction
16. Digital Room Correction
17. Audyssey MultEQ XT32
18. Dirac Live
19. ARC Genesis
20. Trinnov Optimizer
21. MiniDSP
22. Critical Listening: The Ultimate Measurement Instrument
VOLUME VStereo Masterclass
24 chapters
The Purpose of Stereo
1. Why Two Loudspeakers Can Create a World
2. From Recording to Listening Room
3. What High Fidelity Actually Means
4. Designing the System Around the Listener
5. The Phantom Centre and Stereo Image
6. Soundstage Width, Depth and Height
Building the Music-Reproduction Chain
7. Choosing Loudspeakers for the Room
8. Amplifiers Without Mythology
9. Preamplifiers, Integrated Amplifiers and System Architecture
10. Digital Sources and Streaming
11. DACs and Digital Conversion
12. Vinyl Replay Without Mystique
Making Stereo Disappear
13. The Complete Loudspeaker-Placement Method
14. The Listening Seat as a System Component
15. Toe-In, Directivity and Room Reflections
16. Integrating Subwoofers with Stereo
17. Room Correction for Music
18. Dynamics, Timing and Musical Flow
Listening, Comparing and Owning
19. Voices and Acoustic Instruments as References
20. Building a Musical Reference Library
21. Comparing Equipment Fairly
22. Diagnosing Common Stereo Problems
23. The Intelligent Upgrade Path
24. Knowing When the Music System Is Finished
VOLUME VIReal Rooms, Real Systems
24 chapters
From Empty Room to System Brief
1. How to Read a Room
2. Writing the System Brief
3. Mapping the Acoustic and Visual Geometry
4. Budgeting by Bottleneck
5. Predicting Problems Before Installation
6. The Design Review
Complete Stereo Design Studies
7. A Small-Room Stereo System
8. Stereo in a Shared Living Room
9. A Music System for Several Listeners
10. A High-Performance Two-Channel Room
11. Stereo with Subwoofers and Room Correction
12. Improving an Existing Stereo System Without Replacing It
Complete Home-Cinema Design Studies
13. A Modest Living-Room Cinema
14. A Shared Stereo and Home-Cinema Room
15. A Small Dolby Atmos Room
16. A Multi-Seat Family Cinema
17. A Dedicated Reference Cinema
18. Improving an Existing Cinema Without Rebuilding It
Difficult Rooms and Difficult Decisions
19. The Asymmetric Room
20. The Room with Almost No Placement Freedom
21. Neighbours, Night Listening and Limited Volume
22. Designing for Hearing Differences and Accessibility
23. The Upgrade That Did Not Work
24. The Finished-System Handover
VOLUME VIIThe Audio Troubleshooting Guide
22 chapters
The Diagnostic Method
1. Begin with the Symptom, Not the Suspect
2. Following the Complete Signal Path
3. Restoring a Known Reference State
4. Changing One Variable at a Time
5. Essential Diagnostic Tools
6. Safety, Isolation and Knowing When to Stop
Sound Problems
7. No Sound, Intermittent Sound or the Wrong Source
8. One Channel Missing or Incorrect
9. Hum, Buzz, Hiss, Clicking and Digital Noise
10. Distortion, Harshness and Unexpected Shutdowns
11. Weak Imaging and an Unstable Phantom Centre
12. Boomy, Thin or Uneven Bass
Home-Cinema Problems
13. Dialogue That Is Too Quiet or Unclear
14. Surround or Atmos That Does Not Sound Immersive
15. When a Picture Fault Interrupts Sound
16. Lip-Sync and Audio Delay
Reliability, Recovery and Decisions
17. Streaming, Network and Application Failures
18. Remote Controls, HDMI-CEC and Systems That Fight Themselves
19. Firmware Updates and the System That Changed Overnight
20. Faults That Come and Go
21. Repair, Replace or Redesign?
22. The Complete Recovery File
VOLUME VIIIThe Audio Equipment Guide
30 chapters
How to Judge Equipment
1. Begin with the Requirement, Not the Product
2. Specifications: Useful, Misleading and Missing
3. Measurements, Reviews and Listening Tests
4. Level-Matched Comparison
5. Reliability, Support and Product Life
6. System Compatibility and Hidden Upgrade Costs
Electronics and Sources
7. AV Receivers
8. Stereo Integrated Amplifiers
9. Power Amplifiers
10. Preamplifiers and Volume Control
11. DACs
12. Network Streamers
13. Disc Players and Transports
14. Turntables
15. Cartridges and Tonearms
16. Phono Stages
Loudspeakers and Subwoofers
17. Loudspeaker Types and Design Choices
18. Sensitivity, Impedance and Amplifier Matching
19. Directivity and Room Compatibility
20. Active and Passive Loudspeakers
21. Subwoofers
22. Centre, Surround and Height Speakers
Cables, Connections and Infrastructure
23. Analogue Interconnects
24. Loudspeaker Cables
25. Digital Audio Connections
26. HDMI Cables and Signal Bandwidth
27. Ethernet and Wi-Fi
28. Power, Earthing and Surge Protection
29. Racks, Ventilation and Installation
30. Buying New, Used or Ex-Demonstration Equipment
VOLUME XIIIThe Reference Companion
24 chapters
Core Concepts and Calculations
1. How to Use the Reference Companion
2. Decibels, Ratios and Reference Levels
3. Frequency, Wavelength and Time
4. Sound Level, Distance, Power and Sensitivity
5. Polarity, Phase, Delay and Group Delay
6. Sampling, Bandwidth and Digital Data Rates
Rooms, Loudspeakers and Bass
7. Room Dimensions and Modal Frequencies
8. Reflections, Absorption and Scattering
9. Decay Time and Reverberation
10. Crossovers, Filters and Acoustic Summation
11. Directivity, Coverage and Listening Geometry
12. Subwoofer Placement, Delay and Multiple Sources
Picture and Home-Cinema Geometry
13. Screen Size, Distance and Viewing Angle
14. Projection Throw, Light and Contrast
15. Aspect Ratios, Cropping and Constant Image Height
16. Resolution, Chroma, Bit Depth and HDR
17. Surround and Immersive-Loudspeaker Geometry
18. Lip-Sync, Frame Time and Gaming Latency
Reference Library
19. Connectors, Interfaces and Signal Directions
20. Audio, Video and Immersive Formats
21. Reading Measurements and Specifications
22. Diagnostic Decision Trees
23. Worked Design Worksheets
24. A–Z Encyclopaedia and Series Cross-Index
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