What is room pressurization and how does it affect the performance of your sound system?
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- Let's address the issue of room pressurization. We get customers who don't know what that means at all, and we get people who are extremely knowledgeable and extremely sensitive to it and worried. It comes at us in a bunch of different ways. If I get subwoofer X of yours, am I going to be over subwoofering my system or my room?
0:30
So let's first of all define the room pressurization issue and it's a really important one and it really relates to your main system and what a great subwoofer can do to help that issue. So, most of the time, whether conscious or not and a lot of times, it's unconscious on our part. We have a tendency to turn a song up or a system up to the point when we love this thing.
Oh, I want to hear this. You turn it up to the point, whether you know it or not, to the point that the room actually pressurizes.
1:00
Most of us stop there. There there's that last 2 to 3% who, you know, if a little bit's good, a whole bunch more has gotta be better. And there's no help for them. But when you talk about room pressurization, in natural events, when you hear natural music occurring in a real space, there is a natural pressurization that occurs, and the interesting thing is it can be at very low volume.
Why? I'm going to take a symphonic orchestra just to give you an ultimate example.
1:30
You can have something like a very quiet peace and the timpani just barely taps it with his mallet and you get this pretty explosive sound relative. Why? Because the contrast is massive. And also, it's a pretty large physical structure that's being excited.
A concert bass drum, gosh, those things are three and a half feet in diameter. They got two skins. It's the equivalent of about, you know, three 18 inch drivers happening at the same time.
2:00
So, it doesn't take a lot, and they have concert halls that are designed to project this out into the audience.
At home some of the things you have to worry about and deal with every day. Open floor plan houses. You know, the kitchen gives on to the, the dining room, the dining room bleeds into the living room. Suddenly you're trying to excite 8 to 10,000 cubic feet of airspace. So that takes larger subwoofers.
Second thing, stereo pairs matter, just generically.
2:30
They are intrinsically better and sort of more pistonic. We can really get the three-dimensional stage popping alive, easier and more smoothly through the room when done properly. Stereo pairs help pressurize. Now I'm going to talk about the other end of the curve.
And this is something that people almost never talk about. There's a tendency in subwoofers, there's this dialogue about how loud it can play and how hard it hits and how much room pressure you get out of it.
3:00
That's great and we do that pretty well, but the part that nobody really understands is especially late at night or with soft pieces of music, how quietly you can listen when you have a great sub.
Especially when connected up high level, that really blends seamlessly with your main speaker, because you can hear room pressurization even at relatively low volumes when the system is adapted properly. It allows you to listen to a much broader variety of music at the levels that they would be listened to, and it allows you to listen at times when perhaps you wouldn't be able to.
3:30
For, for many young families, you know, by 8:30 over and out, you can't play the system because to have it be fun, you have to turn it up so loud. All of a sudden you don't, you can be playing at a moderate volume or even a very low volume, and you'll still get that body that richness, that warmth, which is the result of great room pressurization.
John Hunter and the REL team - thanks for reinforcing and educating why the lower octaves are so important in the entire spectrum. Great point about playing at low volumes...this is how I augmented the warmth in my system. Be it a pair of REL subs or any pair; it just takes a little bit of work to progress the system so far forward. Thanks again.
It was exactly like he described in my system. I got a sub and now I don't have to turn up so loud until I feel the music.
I'm still not sure what room pressurization actually is even after hearing this. Must be me.
Thanks for the great video John, I just now found and subscribed.
I've a single SHO5 in a 14X24X8 basement listening room. Followed the simple instructions it was easy to setup and adjust and sounds fantastic. I hope to someday get one more for a matched pair but frankly don't hear anything lacking. It blends in so perfectly people are shocked I have a sub. My family enjoys watching movies we adjust it for those times makes a huge difference to the viewing experience.
Understood
Good explanation
I just bought a Carbon Special and i fully understand your theory. Appreciate your hard work.
It is completely true what you say and how you explain it. Thank you for the good explanation and information. Beautiful super subwoofers as they should sound. Greetings from the Netherlands Limburg Maastricht. And above all keep going.
✌👍😉
can't have too much Bass 😉 well, you can... my pair of S502s are at extremely low level setting. But it's oh so good ...
Even after the explanation I still have no idea what "room pressurization" is and how to determine and deal with it.
I thought he was ambiguous as well. He is simply referring to having "a" subwoofer, preferably 2. It also helps to have room treatment such as sound absorbers and diffusers. Absorbers and particularly "Bass Traps" placed in all 4 corners where the wall meets the ceiling work to trap the base sound wave-(very large sound waves). It is not all that expensive to use absorbers and bass traps but it gets more costly to add diffusers. Rel subwoofers are superb, that is all they make and they are highly rated. I have the Rel T7i in a small treated room and it is more than enough. If your room is of any size you probably want to fo with a Rel t9i...
Yeah, I realized that!
High level is the way to go!
I get earthquake bass at VERY low volumes now!
Whether it is discrete digital surround or not, that LFE channel always sounds like a bloated and unnatural mess with EVERYTHING-even films!
Buy your REL subwoofers or buy a high level to RCA converter! All the subwoofer bass is only on the left channel!
My 1508’s will bottom out wasn’t sure if it’s pressure in the room doing that 12x15 feet, volume is 3/4 crossover maxed on back 40hz on preamp
And Still the King !! Let me know if you like me to review the t7i active subwoofers , me channels last sub review is at 330k views ! High level input 😃 Really want to try them out badly !
Would love a how 2 video again this time with me Yamaha 52 pound integrated amp that has speakers A-B 😃 paired with me Triangle Esprit EZ comete ohh my !!
Hi John. I have 2 T5is. Speakers are in the corners. Could I place them on the opposite wall corners, behind my listening position?
Your T/5i subwoofers can be placed in the corners behind your listening position, though we have found that the performance of the subwoofers can be significantly improved by having them placed along the same wall as your main loudspeakers. This especially helps to improve the way that the subwoofers blend and integrate with the main loudspeakers.
My open floor plan is actually 10,000 cu ft as you mentioned. What REL set up would you recommend? Speakers are Duevel Bella Luna omnidirectional.
Thank you for reaching out. When you have a chance, please write in to contactus@rel.net and our team will be happy to provide a subwoofer pairing recommendation specific to your system.