The sound field generated by a composite vibrator consists of a wattless near field that decreases very rapidly with distance and an energy‐carrying radiation field. For radiators more than half a wavelength apart, the sound fields are spatially incoherent. The radiation field of a complex sound generator can therefore be computed by adding up the energy contributions of its various radiating elements. The radiating elements can be grouped as vibrators that are small in comparison to the wavelength, vibrators without nodal lines that are large in comparison to the wavelength, and vibrators with a nodal line pattern.The radiation resistance of vibrators without nodal lines can, for most practical purposes, be stated with sufficient accuracy in terms of that of the equivalent sphere. The sound radiation of vibrators with nodal lines can be attributed to two causes. For the low‐order modes of vibration, the contributions of the zone of positive and negative amplitude do not compensate one another entirely, and the radiation resistance, though small, is different from zero. Such modes may therefore be expected to contribute to the sound pressure if they are excited in their resonance range. For the high‐order modes compensation is complete, but a point force or a force distribution along a line or over a finite area also excites to forced vibrations many low‐order modes with very few nodal lines. Since the distance between the nodal lines is greater than the acoustic wavelength in the surrounding medium, the radiation impedance for these modes is very nearly equal to ρc. Since these modes are forced to vibrate at frequencies above their resonant frequency, the resistive component of their impedance being negligible in comparison to the reactive component, this sound pressure is independent of the damping of the system. The radiation impedance is computed for the cases mentioned.