Amazon.com's top-selling DSP book for 5 straight years-now fully updated!

Real-world DSP solutions for working professionals!

Understanding Digital Signal Processing, Second Edition is quite simply the best way for engineers, and other technical professionals, to master and apply DSP techniques. Lyons has updated and expanded his best-selling first edition-building on the exceptionally readable coverage that made it the favorite of professionals worldwide.

This book achieves the perfect balance between theory and practice, making DSP accessible to beginners without ever oversimplifying it. Comprehensive in scope and gentle in approach, keeping the math at a tolerable level, this book helps readers thoroughly grasp the basics and quickly move on to more sophisticated techniques.

This edition adds extensive new coverage of quadrature signals for digital communications; recent improvements in digital filtering; and much more. It also contains more than twice as many "DSP Tips and Tricks"… including clever techniques even seasoned professionals may have overlooked.

• Down-to-earth, intuitive, and example-rich, with detailed numerical exercises

• Stresses practical, day-to-day DSP implementations and problem-solving

• All-new quadrature processing coverage includes easy-to-understand 3D drawings

• Extended coverage of IIR filters; plus frequency sampling, interpolated FIR filters

• New coverage of multirate systems; including both polyphase and cascaded integrator-comb FIR filters

• Coverage includes: periodic sampling, DFT, FFT, digital filters, discrete Hilbert transforms, sample rate conversion, quantization, signal averaging, and more

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 68 Ratings

Not useful for me at all!!!! - 2009-11-18
Reviewer Rating:
Unlike a lot of positive comments about this book, I found it terribly difficult to underestand! There are things that have been over explained (that bores you to death) and things that do not have any/little explanations (things that I always had problem underestanding them)! What sort of begginers book is this?!

the best book for scientist and engineers who use MATLAB to process time-series everyday - 2009-07-29
Reviewer Rating:
This book is not a textbook, but it is far more useful than the popular text books on the topic of DSP. A lot of the concepts explained here really affect the effectiveness of common data processing programs. Highly recommended for anyone who use MATLAB and FFT on a regular basis.

Intuitive and all-around excellent, but not for everyone - 2009-05-28
Reviewer Rating:
I read this straight through, cover to cover. I have found Lyons's discussion to be illuminating and intuitive on a number of points, but this book is not for everyone.

Lyons doesn't major on long equations and proofs the way most DSP books do (e.g, he omits the actual algorithm for Remez exchange and suggests the reader use an existing implementation in his favorite software package instead). The math is simpler here because he is aiming for intuition and understanding, not algorithmic mastery or mathematical rigor. That can be a good thing, depending on what one wants out of a DSP book.

The single most helpful chapter compiles and updates the author's DSP Tips and Tricks columns from an IEEE DSP magazine. One trick therein (computing a 2N-length real FFT as an N-length complex FFT) found immediate application at my workplace and provided significant speed-up in our application -- even more than he predicted because of the optimizations in our FFT library. Even so, it seemed to me that most of these 30-odd tricks could have been incorporated into the relevant chapters, perhaps in a "Tips and Tricks" section at the end of each. It was a little awkward at times to have some trick for an algorithm discussed four chapters ago.

One of the least helpful chapters to me was on specialized FIR filters. It seemed (particularly first half on frequency-sampled filters) like a more advanced and optional topic than its placement in the book indicated, and after it, the discussion returned to more fundamental matters. I understand that the author wanted to put the filter design chapters together, but it seemed to me like a diversion from the main flow of the book into unnecessary complexity. If the chapter had appeared at the end of the book, it probably would have been better for me, and, according to an email, the author may remove it from the next edition. (Since you know now what I didn't know then, just skip that section until later if you prefer.)

The reader should look elsewhere if he wants problems to work out at the end of each chapter or if he seeks to grasp the deep theoretical details of signal processing. And I don't think this is a good book for introducing DSP to someone who has no schooling in or on-the-job experience with it because it assumes some background knowledge that the neophyte just wouldn't have. (My boss, who has a degree in mathematics and has been doing software engineering for 20 years or so, confirms this opinion from when he tried to read it. Now that he has more hands-on experience with DSP thanks to a project we've been on, it is more useful and comprehensible for him.)

But for a refresher or for getting some math and theory to back up real-world experience, it's a good place to look -- perhaps the best place.

This book is well written, its informative and interesting. - 2009-05-02
Reviewer Rating:
I had seen the book "Understanding Digital Signal Processing" by Richard G. Lyons advertised on the internet. I have also seen and read several technical articles authored by Lyons scattered around the internet. I was interested in the book but I didn't want to purchase it before I could thumb through it and get an idea of the quality of its content. I paid a visit to the well stocked library at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and found it sitting on the shelf in the signal processing section. I checked the book out and had three weeks to read and evaluate it. I was not able to read the entire book in the three week period but I read enough in about two weeks to determine that it was a well written book so I ordered a copy from Amazon.

Lyons states in the book's introduction "I've attempted to avoid the traditional instructor-student relationship, but rather make reading this book like talking to a friend while walking in the park". I believe Lyons has achieved his goals in this respect.

In my grad and under grad days, in order to gain some understanding of the subject at hand, I spent many an hour reading and then re-reading course assigned engineering texts in an effort to fill in the many technical blanks left by the authors. A large majority of these texts took a stuffed shirt approach in what seemed to be a pompous attempt by the author to demonstrate his intelligence. They rarely connected all the technical dots. Now that I think about it, a bunch of the dots were missing too!

Attitudes like this seem to changing with modern day authors like Lyons. He makes a noticeable effort to keep the material informative and interesting. I really appreciate the fact that Lyons takes his time and thoroughly explains each subject. He uses a lot of text to walk the reader through each topic.

In his presentation he fills in the critical blanks and eliminates a great deal of the classical stumbling blocks that usually led to student head scratching, wall pounding , and dog kicking, which was a common reaction to the older generation texts.

This is definitely a good book for engineering students who have just begun their journey into the world of Digital Signal Processing. This is definitely a good book for practicing engineers who feel the need to clear up some of the gray areas in their DSP knowledge.

The title of the book "Understanding Digital Signal Processing" pretty much lets the buyer know right from the start that the content of the book is targeted at engineers with a beginning to intermediate knowledge of DSP. This book is probably not suited for the engineering guru's with 20 or 30 years experience in the field of DSP. However, I bet there is some information contained in Lyons work that will clear a few of the technical cobwebs from even these people's heads.

Lyons starts off with a few chapters on the Discrete and Fast Fourier Transform, and finite impulse response and infinite impulse response filters just like most DSP texts. Then he departs from the normal course DSP texts seem to pursue and he takes a step towards real world DSP applications with chapters on quadrature signals, the discrete Hilbert transform, sample rate conversion and signal averaging. He spends a chapter on data formats and their corresponding attributes, which sounds dull until the day you find yourself tasked to design a digital processor that performs high speed digital computations. He then spends more than 100 pages on tips and tricks that are useful in many common signal processing applications.

I received my copy of Lyons book from Amazon last week and am in the process of reading the remainder of the book. When I am done this book will occupy a prime space in my office book case, right at eye level, for an easy grab when needed.

After having read much of the book, would I spend the money to purchase it again if necessary? The answer is a definite yes. This is money well spent.

Excellent view into world of DSP - 2009-04-24
Reviewer Rating:
This book presents the fundamental and most important concepts of DSP without the rigors of mathematics so that any working engineer and developer can understand them. Mr. Lyon's writing style is excellent and his knowledge in the area of DSP pours out of each chapter. Highly recommended for anyone using DSP techniques in their product development!!!

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