A microscopic derivation is presented of the rate equations governing vibrational relaxation occurring in the optic-acoustic effect. Detailed expressions applicable to the spectrophone experiment are given both for an excitation source consisting of a broadband radiation field and for laserdriven systems. It is clear from the present treatment that no real advantage accrues from the use of laser excitation sources in the standard spectrophone experiment, due to the resultant strong dependence of the driving force itself on the mechanical chopper frequency. For broadband radiation field the dependence on the chopper frequency is removed and the standard result containing the Einstein coefficient of induced absorption is recovered. The spectrophone response for the simplest case of a two-level system is given explicitly and its similarity to phenomenologically derived expressions is pointed out.