According to an acoustical theory of speech production, the spectra of voiceless fricatives can be characterized by poles and zeros whose frequency locations are dependent on the vocal‐tract configuration and on the location of the source of excitation within the vocal tract. The locations of the important poles and zeros in the spectra of fricatives can be determined by a matching process whereby comparison spectra synthesized by electric circuits are matched against the spectra under analysis. This method has been used to determine the frequencies and bandwidths of the important poles and zeros for several versions of /f/, /s/, and /∫/. Based on these findings, a simplified electrical model is developed for the synthesis of voiceless fricatives. The model consists of a noise‐excited electric circuit characterized by a pole and a zero whose frequency locations can be varied. Stimuli generated by this model, both in isolation and in syllables, are presented to listeners for identification. The results of the listening tests are consistent with the data from the acoustic analyses and with the findings of other investigators.