Fundamentals of Acoustics (Müller, Vorländer)
You will learn about the physical fundamentals of sound in this session. After the definition of sound, a brief excursion into the perception of sound and its dependence on the frequency is performed followed by an introduction to the logarithmic scale and working with sound pressure levels. The physical basis for sound in air and the mathematical formulation of the governing differential equations are illustrated via audiovisual demonstrations. Further topics are principles of sound generation, propagation and interaction with boundaries as well as radiation of sound using models based on volume sources and the specific far-field and near-field characteristics. Application of the theory is illustrated using the example of a violin.
Fundamentals of Signals and Systems (Ahrens)
This session starts with a recapitulation of the most important principles in the system theory of time-continuous and time-discrete signals such as linearity, time invariance, the Fourier transform, sampling, and aliasing. You will get insights into the conceptual structure of digital signal processing systems and learn about different flavors of convolution, one of the most important mathematical operations in digital audio signal processing. The session concludes with a short introduction to nonlinear systems.
Anatomy and Physiology of the Hearing System (Fels)
You will learn about the peripheral auditory system and about how closely the fundamental spatial hearing mechanisms are tied to the fact that we are listening with two ears. Besides these fundamentals of binaural hearing, the concepts of head-related transfer functions and binaural synthesis are introduced. Finally, the fundamentals of binaural reproduction are presented.
Psychoacoustics (Seeber)
Psychoacoustics connects the physical world of sound with how we perceive it. Auditory perception is studied in listening experiments and the knowledge is used to develop computational models of hearing which are used to, e.g., evaluate virtual acoustics techniques, to optimize sound quality of products, and to improve hearing aids and cochlear implants. You will learn about the range of sounds humans can hear, under which conditions one sound can mask another, how the auditory system processes sounds in frequency bands, how good we are at interpreting spectral and temporal information, and how binaural information can be used to improve hearing in noisy situations. Example listening experiments will help you understand how we gained our knowledge about the hearing system and how it is possible to objectively describe perception.
Speech Acoustics (Möller)
You will learn about how human speech is produced, which characteristics of the speech signal result from this production process, and how the production process can be modeled. Furthermore, an overview of the most important techniques for speech signal analysis is given, which base heavily on the acoustic properties of speech presented in the first half of the session.
Electroacoustics (Altinsoy)
This session gives an overview of the domain of electroacoustics, which is one of the fascinating and challenging fields of engineering. You will explore the world of loudspeakers and microphones. Electromechanical and electroacoustical analogies help us understanding the basics, which prepare us for understanding the different transducer technologies. Finally, recent advances in the field such as sound beams or new loudspeaker driver designs will be outlined.