I am an Aerospace graduate student reading this book on my own time and pace (not taking the undergrad Electrical Engineering class that teaches/uses this book). I found out about this book because my friend (an EE student) was in that class and I asked him if I could look through it. After looking through it I decided to buy it, and I'm glad I did.

This is a VERY GOOD no-nonsense book. A brief personal background, I've read Control Systems Engineering by Norman S. Nise (Very good book!), and am now reading this book. I would say that this book is really not something you want to dive into without any prior background. Start with a good controls book (Nise, Ogata, etc) and learn the basics. THEN read this book to get the finer details.

Also, make sure you have the MATH background for this book. A lot of this book is dedicated to the fourier series, laplace xfrm, and z xfrm. If you have not had a formal class is fourier series, you might find this difficult to grasp. I would STRONGLY recommend you have a background of: SISO controls, ODEs, and PDEs.

If you have already taken these pre-reqs, this book is a great 'aha!' moment that nicely combines the concepts from all these areas and really gives you nice insights into how they are all related.

As for the problems, I'm not doing them. I'm reading this book for the material, not for a grade. I don't doubt the objections made that the problems are SIGNIFICANTLY harder than the examples. BUT, life is tough. I would recommend you look through my PDE book (Partial Differential Equations - Strauss) to see the BIG JUMP in the hw from the VERY skimpy examples. There are lots of books like this. They are made to be hard for a reason, you have to use your brain to think creatively. Dont expect every book to hold your hand through problem solving!

I would ignore the people who rate this book a 1 just because they cant solve the homework problems. The writing is VERY clear and to the point. Please note, this is NOT a book you want to rush through when reading. If you take your time you will find that its actually VERY insightful.

Given the fast pace of a normal semester, you might find this book to be very dense. In other words, you will have to absorb a TON of material in a short amount of time. So I can see this being a tough class to take. Reading it at your own pace, this book is pure bliss!

I have struggled through two classes utilizing this book, so I feel I do have a good sense of the material in it. It does say something about a textbook when your professor requires you to purchase a second book to fill in the gaps this book creates (Laplace transform). I feel I still do not have an adequate grasp of Fourier series - and I've read those sections time and time again. I eventually went to another textbook to teach myself the material on my own time.
The lack of mathematical examples make the processes of understanding the material WAY more difficult than it needs to be. Another sore point: A lot of the understanding comes from the practice problems. Too bad there are so few answers in the back of the book. It leaves you to question what you have learned - if anything from the problem.

This book explain very clear what are differences about Fourier and Laplace Transform. Eventhough, those transform appears in the same range of time.
The writer of these book is well known Professors who is also editor of Prentice hall series in Signal processing.Eventhough, I just past these subject two times in Bachelor and Master coursework. I don't found it is useful for my research until recently. I should do more exercise in this book!.

Amazon's editorial reviews are correct. Don't be deceived into thinking that this is anything other than an introduction for the complete novice. It's a book with a particular style: long and wordy. It's only for a particular *kind* of novice: one who needs a lot of hand holding and every detail worked out. It's nearly 1000 pages. I learned the subject in 1976 from an earlier edition that was a third the size (I think) but there doesn't seem to be twice again as many new topics covered.

The mathematics is at an undergrad level, with much (but not all) developed as needed in the text. Topics are missing. For example the inverse Laplace transform is mentioned but not developed (perhaps an appropriate choice in a book for the novice), and the Butterworth and elliptic filters are mentioned, even with graphs of their frequency responses, but they are not defined in any way whatsoever.

Some topics are reserved for the exercises. For example, windowing is covered only in one long-ish problem.

The Amazon review says it's a good book for self-study. I'd agree, provided you understand that you are getting only an introduction at the undergraduate level. If you are a grad student or professional, or if you can't tolerate long detailed explanations, this is not the book for you.

The book has been arrived in good condition and spent a time less than I expect.Thanks for all.

This book was a great reference for the book Signals, Systems, and Transforms by Leland B. Jackson.

This is one of my favorite books I've covered in my undergraduate degree.

I've noticed several previous reviewers have critisized this book based on clearly false assumptions. Clarification must be done for non-EEs:

This book, along others titled ' Signals and Systems' is intended as a preliminary to the 'systems' part of electrical engineering in general(namely Communications, Signal Processing, and Control). Hence it's not a book on standard DSP (the author has two other books that are specifically entitled Digital Signal Processing and Discrete time signal processing).

What's more, since this book was designed specifically as an introduction for sophomore and junior engineering students, one cannot expect this book to go into lebesgue2 space, inner-products, bounded-operators and the like. Certainly oppenheim didn't have functional analysts in mind when he wrote this book! The mathematically inclined reader should aim for 'Signal Analysis: Time, Frequency ,Scale, and Structure' by Allen and Mills.

As for the typical reader of this book, I think it is well written and the equations are very well motivated. The author repeats the difficult and essential concepts several times here and there, which is very useful for the new comers into the field, although I do agree with reveiwers that said the book needs some adjustments in terms of examples, which are sometimes trivial and sometimes confusing.

I believe the book needs to be updated by the author sometime. The book lacks computer problems and examples, which would be very helpfull for students to visualize what's going on.

hope this was useful!

The service was prompt in getting the book delivered. I was happy that product was offered and a fair price. It inspires me to continue buying books for school through Amazon. Thanks.

It is probably the best book on the subject which I have had. It was the reference for my undergraduate signals and systems course. It is both good as a text book and a reference. Very well written! explains the concepts very clearly and has a lot of good examples and end of chapter problems.

As a non EE undergraduate, I needed a book to prepare my for the rigors of an MSC degree in DSP which builds heavily on basic foundations such as Fourier, Laplace and Z transforms. I spent 3 months reading the book (while working) before starting the MSc and I found that it was exactly what I needed. There are plenty of examples, which for me are a vital ingredient in any book that touches this area--there is no way to learn without examples and this book excels at them.

I recommend this book to the EE undergraduate who is attending his first "signal and systems" course or to MSc studnets like me who need an in depth discussion of the issues.

It is a popular book in the Signal Processing Arena. But it is still questionable if it is a better if not the best book around. This book is a comprehensive one, no doubt. But it is more wordy and becomes stereotypic after a point. It tests the reader's patience if he is not informed about the above fact. Some students even start developing hatred towards DSP courtesy: its way of presentation. Though many students might rate this book as one of the classics in DSP, the statement is arguable. It is high time this book undergoes major revision and the presentation is made crisp and more user friendly.

My opinion above is just for the sake of benefit of the students who go by the popular opinion and fall victim. I feel only a thorough revision of this book can alleviate the disappointment of the students who go by popular opinion. However, this book can be used as a reference throughout the life once one develops interest for DSP through some other source.

A lot of stuff in there, but it is all just scratching at the surface. If you really want to understand the mathematics behind it and what is going an, forget it. Example: Fourier Transformation. In what field are we working? Why can L2([0,1]) be identified with the nonperiodic Lebesgue Space l2(Z)? Hilbert Spaces and thus orthognalility aren't even mentioned. Example: Convolution. Under what conditions can we convolute (remember the equation of young?) Nothing about this at all. Mathematics are not at all (or not really in depth) dealt with. So it is no more than an under-undergraduate book to generally get a picture of what Signals and Systems are about. Too many trivial figures. Another problem are the 'solved problems'. Only answers to trivial problems are given; and they are no solutions but nothing more than the results. And where you really want an advanced problem solved you just got bad luck.

Imagine an undergraduate student with a caffeine saturated blood one day before the exam trying to learn the subject in few hours, my god this horrible story might be good enough to make it mission impossible IV!, it is hard to say this is the wrong book. If this is your case I would recommend something like schaum's!

Otherwise, if you are trying to learn the concept so that you will not just pass this course but also you can pass more advanced courses e.g. digital communication or digital signal processing, I guess, this is the book to learn it bottom to up approach.

However, it is more focused on the concept and the mathematical foundations. In my view, this is how you learn the right way.

Ironically speaking, trading the insight and the mathematical convenience for saving time using some solved examples (robotic supervised learning approach) within the semester at constant grade (in this course w.r.t. someone who knows the concept) would not guarantee you that same constant grade in the next more advanced course and as for the higher order terms(k(this year)+n;n=0..m in the set[0,1,2,3]) it will decay your grades exponentially!

Finally, I would like to emphasize that the book is not concerned with DSP or digital communication as it is obvious in its title. The book doesn't cover things like Hilbert transform neither. It is made for a sophomore or a Junior ECS course to learn the foundation of the material.

In summary, the book is made for undergrads those want to get superior GPAs.

It takes time to build up your mind with signals concepts in the beginning but then your d(learning)/dt will increase as the new mathematical concepts decrease i.e.d(new math. concepts)/dt=-ve.

This book give you much than you need to understand the concepts as well as objective problems and advanced problems in the end of every chapter.
My advise: if you do care about your GPA more than you to understand concepts you may see other texts more helpful in this area and you can even get just the sheets of this book,otherwise this book will make you (as an undergraduate student) understand all the concept to start in DSP and comm.theories.

Having had this book for 2 semesters in a Signals and Systems course, I can say that it has done its job in presenting an in-depth and clear introduction to the topic. It is well-written, structured, comprehensive and has lots of challenging (and not so) exercises and examples.

A few comments on the latter: it seemed to me that the first 20 basic exercises at the end of each chapter were very basic, of the type "plug-in the formula from the table on the previous page", while the subsequent problems, especially the advanced ones, are way above the level of the former. Working out through those was meticulous, hard and very lengthy as compared to the basic stuff (the solutions provided by our instructor were of the order 1-2 typed pages per problem). Providing answers or at least general strategies would have been tremendously helpful. I am aware that there is a solutions manual, however the textbook itself is expensive enough.

The information was presented clearly, but I liked our professor's introduction to convolution more that the book's coverage. The sampling chapter was, at least to me and some of my fellows, a bit confusing and we had to, again, rely more on class notes.

Overall this is a good book, albeit very-very expensive (I was lucky enough to get a cheap Indian reprint).

This is the definitive text on this topic. Right from the basics of signals to the presentation of complex topics like communication systems, this book beats every other book. The one drawback is that examples are few and far apart. So eventhough those few examples are representative of entire sections, students may find it tough to solve the hundreds of exercise problems.

However I have used many other texts for this course, and only Simon Haykin's text came close.

The book was used as the text for a class in Intro to Signals and Systems. I don't think the material could be explained better the first time around. I'll admit the text is quite long winded, and how it seperates continous and discrete/sampled signals into seperate chapters makes each topic even longer. I'll also say, it doesn't do the best job at explaining how to compute convolutions, but was the best I'd seen to date. On the other hand, the book does an excellent job explaining Fourier coefficients and transforms, Laplace and Z transforms, and Nyquist sampling.

I used several books while studying this subject.
The oppenheim wilsky (O/W) is a very good at explaining the basic ideas of signal processing, classification et al. I found the math part of it (chps 3- 6 : concerning various fourier representations) a tad inadequate.
I also liked the Haykin's (Signals and Systems by Simon Haykin and Barry Van Veen) approach to fourier,laplace representations better organized. (all four transforms are deal with simultaneously.. this helps in retaining clarity)
on the whole, the book is useful as long as you can supplement the math in it with a more problem oriented book like the schuam series book (By Hsu).
There is a solutions manual available for end of chapter problems. But working it out on your own or in a study group is far more effective.

I am a chinese undergraduate student in electronics engneering,
instand of giving out many hard to understand mathematical equations.it give you very basic understanding of signals & systems.it focused on why we should use this method,why we should think this way...instead of just teach you how to solve the n order differential equations,how to used complex and don't -know-why way to solve mathematical problems.
If you guys are lucky enough to gain the chinese text book we are using now on signals and systems.You will find it a piece of mathematics junk,in compare with this one.

As an undergrad electrical engineering student, this book was not exactly helpful. It gives extreme detailed literature on the concepts of fundamentals, but as a student trying to learn and solve LTI and convolution, it becomes unneccesarily wordy. Let's just say with this book, it's like solving a math problem with words instead of numbers. The professors might like this book because it forces students to look at the concepts instead of looking at examples to figure out the problem, but most students might be discouraged by the lengthy and dry reading (I'm not talking about a page here or there, at least 10 pages before you get to the actual problem). Also, the book does not divide it's section thoroughly, so if one wants to figure how to do something, they'll have to scan through the entire book with little or no diagrams. You practically have to scan through the whole literature to find something similar thinking that this will answer your question just to find that it may not be the one you're looking for. Simply put, extremely time consuming to learn one little concept. For me, at least, you stand a much better chance staying awake in lecture than to try to figure it out at home.

This book is okay when it concepts , but when it comes to problem solving techniques , it becomes a cropper . It is one of the worst books prescribed for an Under Graduate student . I am pretty sure , half the lecturers don't understand it's contents completely . And the examples this book provides is by no means an asset to it . Come to think of it , one thing is sure . Either the author seems to have had a complete lack of direction while writing this book , or , keeping an eye on the trade , he must have not given answers or worked out solutions to any of the problems within the book . On the whole , an utter waste of time and money .

This book is extremely difficult material for undergrad students to comprehend- if a professor can't realize that another career is in order. Like many college texts this one seems to be written for other profs to read as opposed to beginning engineering students to learn the material. If your prof isn't extremely strong this book won't help! I am going to give Lathi's book a go....

At MIT, Signals and Systems (6.003) is a sophomore-level class and is the third in a series of four introductory classes mandatory of all MIT EECS students. The textbook was written for the course and homework is frequently assigned from the textbook; therefore, solutions will be hard to come by.

The text is excellent and the example problems are thoroughly explained.

A lot of instructors use this book for reference. It is one of the best books in this subject that I have seen. however the material isn't easy and for beginner students this book will be chalenging.

The problems in this book at the end of each chapter are not even close to explained in the text. This book might be a good thing to read if you have a VERY good professor, but since none of the professors teaching the class at my school are considered by students even to be good, a lot more than this book provides is needed

I have just used this text in teaching a second-year Signals and Systems course. Yes -- the students have struggled with the course, and several of them have grumbled about the book. However, none of the adverse comments I've received about the book either from my students or other reviewers here seem to be valid. The possible exception is the lack of more worked examples or at least answers to end of chapter problems.

The book is an excellent basic introduction to the subject. It takes what can be a very difficult subject for students and provides a relatively clear path through the material. It doesn't assume very much mathematical background in the sense that there are plenty of very elementary problems in chapter one to remind you of the basics that you need for the rest of the book. Obviously if students have trouble with these problems they need to consider additional study to fill in some of the gaps in their knowledge on the mathematics side.

The worked examples in the chapters are excellent, although sometimes you have to ask yourself what you are supposed to be learning from each example or end of chapter problem. The first 20 problems at the end of each chapter really cover the chapter material, and subsequent problems delve into the material in a little more depth or in relation to more real-world problems. If you understand the chapter you should have no great difficulty in doing the first 20 problems in each chapter, and the answers are provided to help you make sure you aren't missing the point. I found some of the other problems a little less clear, and certainly the students had difficulties here. I provided well over a hundred pages of written solutions for my students to try to overcome this deficiency.

There is a solutions manual, but I don't recommend it all that highly. I found quite a lot of basic mistakes in the solutions manual. Several problems seemed to be done the "wrong way" compared to what I think the intention of the problem is. Also, some of the solutions in the solutions manual don't give enough guidance to students (at least not to the students I had in my course, and most likely not to many others judging by sorts of comments I've read in reviews here). On the other hand, I've probably made similar sorts of mistakes with the solutions I've provided, so I guess I can understand why the solutions manual has these deficiencies.

A few of the end of chapter problems (very, very few) didn't seem to have much point. Some seemed to involve a lot of work, for not much instructive gain. However, the large majority of problems are excellent and highly instructive.

As with all books there are possibly things which could be improved, but overall this book is excellent in terms of being a good basic introductory text for a Signals and Systems course. Such a course is something that many students are going to find difficult, but the book isn't to blame if that's the case.

Can we say USELESS?

The book explains NONE of the problems in the back, and you basically can't use the book to help solve advanced problems.

The worst part is, there are problems in the book WITHOUT ANSWERS, and I'm not talking about the odd #s or even #s, but I'm talking a huge chunk (where the real meat of the chapters are found in applied equations) lack solutions.

If you're looking to use this book, I suggest you compare it with your best doorstop or table prop, and see if you really need this $75+ hunk of junk.

It's a good book. But if any one who can tell me how to get the solution manual, it will be much better. Thanks!

Systems and Signals is a textbook for undergrad engineering majors. Although there are hundreds of worked out examples within the body of the text, there are only 10-15 problems at the end of each chapter with answers. The only flaw in this text is that it does not provide the student with enough problems with answers in the back. A solution guide to this text exists...

I use this textbook for ECE310 Linear Systems and Communications for 3rd year Computer Engineering @ University of Toronto. I found it quite nice, however for our learning purposes way too trivial... I don't know how it is for the rest of the world, but for us here in Toronto, it made this course one of our "bird" courses. Way too easy if you ask me, however considering i got 100% in that course, i can't complain...

Good startup step to commiuncation field for all people that want get into the new technology -to built your fundmental understanding of sigal & system.

I want the answers of this book ! can you send email to me

The text itself was fairly easy to follow in most parts. The examples are trivial and offer no help in solving the absurd chapter problems.

This book is required reading for Purdue University's EE301 class. The author assumes that we have already taken multipal signals and systems classes and that we already know how to do many of the "tricks" he knows. However, the majority of the time, he fails to mention which trick he is using, or clearly show how to work the problem in an orderly fashion.

Classic Signals n' Systems texbook. A pleasure to read. Carefully worded book that guides you through mant important concepts and examples. I love this book. Second to none!

a good book from good author

This book may be good if one is already familiar with the subject, but very difficult to learn from. The example in the text cover only very basic problems, and still manage to be hard to understand. The problems from the end of the chapters are of far greater complexity than any of the examples worked within the chapter. BAD, BAD, BAD...

I am currently using this book at the University of Pittsburgh and found it very difficult to follow. I feel that the author spends more time trying to show his english and grammer skills rather than his knowledge of systems and signals. The examples that are given, don't supply enough information on how to get from point A to point B.

I used this book in an electronics class (EE301) at Purdue University. While it has excellent reference tables throughout the book that contain all the useful formulas, the explanations in the text are weak. The author(s) seem too busy trying to impress us with mathematical explanations to tell us why all this is useful in the real world. Unfortunately, this is the norm in electronics texts-- few professors ever have jobs in the real world, making it difficult for them to explain why all the rest of us need to know what we're learning. This book is no exception.

This text does not provide solid explanations of the example problems. Instructions on convolution are vague and confusing.

Las cr�ticas al libro son realmente injustas, en mi opini�n el autor no pretende escribir un curso sobre Se�ales sino m�s bien un texto que sirva como gu�a al desarrollo de un curso semestral. Detenerse en determinados aspectos har�a de este, un libro interminable,y se presupone que el lector esta minimamente familiarizado con t�cnicas matem�ticas como para no detenerse en aspectos ajenos a la disciplina de la cual versa.

Las críticas al libro son realmente injustas, en mi opinión el autor no pretende escribir un curso sobre Señales sino más bien un texto que sirva como guía al desarrollo de un curso semestral. Detenerse en determinados aspectos haría de este, un libro interminable,y se presupone que el lector esta minimamente familiarizado con técnicas matemáticas como para no detenerse en aspectos ajenos a la disciplina de la cual versa.

This book assumes too much of the reader. Describing steps in problem solving with the terms "by inspection and "clearly" do not help. This made the examples poor and the text useless.

These guys are god! This is the best signals book

Although widely accepted as the standard text for introductory signals & systems courses, this book is sometimes unclear and difficult to read. Chapters covering introduction to LTI sytems and convolution theory are poor and confusing. Chapters covering continuous Fourier transform and sampling are pretyy good, however. The way in which the text shifts back and forth from continuous to discrete systems is annoying and not likeley to be useful in an actual course.

Very confusing book. Seems to spend alot of time on very simple topics and no time on complex topics. Introduces important concepts in very illogical locations. Examples are not worked out clearly and rely on words such as "clearly" and "by inspection." VERY confusing book...find another!

As a non-ECE student studying signals and systems, I find that the examples in the book are very hurried and do not allow the student to be able to translate those concepts over into the problem sets.

I spent more time trying to understand the author's prose than I did trying to solve the problems. There are many good exercises in the book, but the author's ability to explain principles were far from being succinct and unambiguous. The author often digressed, and there were even times when the text became misleading. Causality was not correctly defined and convolution was definetly convoluted. This book serves only 2 purposes. 1)A nice source of practice problems. 2)A hideous source of punishment for those students learning about signals for their first time. I would not recommend this book until the author adds 3 times more mathematics and reduces his prose to 1/3.

I remember reading this book for one of my courses back in college. It's pretty decent but, the section explaining convolution is atrocious. It's only 3-4 pages long and there are only two-in the entire book- examples given. The first, which is trivial, is worked out in detail. The second more realistic example is not. The reverse would have been more a more illuminating situation. This text does a very good job on the other topics covered. Be warned however that the constant shifting between discrete and continuous signals in the book probably will not be how those subjects are taught in a course. Consider using "Circuits, Signals, and Systems" as a supplement.

This is an excellent for book for elementary signals and systems analysis for undergrad. electrical engineering students. It has all the concepts written and explained out clearly and it contains a huge collection of problems. Yet, since this is a subject students encounter quite early in their course, it should have more complex worked out examples. This is a great book for both continuous and discrete signals and systems analysis and design with a methodical approach to real wourld problems. I recommend it for all ECE students.