rolls Stereo Program Limiter, Black (SL33B)

Tips for how to use it towards the end.The reviews about this limiter are pretty varied and so is my opinion too unfortunately. I got this limiter to decrease the dynamic range to the movies I watch in my apartment. Dynamic range if you don't know is the differences between the louder and the quieter parts of the audio. For this purpose, the limiter is great. However, the result is a loss of depth and clarity. I now have sound that is mostly flat along with also being muddy and distorted at times(especially when things get loud). I want to point out though that the muddyness/distorted parts are not to bad. Its noticeable, but it's not so noticeable that it's distracting and you think to yourself "damn, these speakers suck/blowing out" 😆. At their worst I akin the sound to shitty loud blasting audio in a cheap theater 🤷‍♂️.So yes, despite the loss in audio quality, it's not an unpleasant experience overall. Your results obviously may vary acording to what compression your looking for. If you don't need a lot well then you might not notice the dip in audio quality. I had a friend over and she says it sounds good. She has never herd "good" apparently 🤦‍♂️, but hey there's that light of hope that you might like this limiter. Not implying I don't, I mean, I definetly dont love it but it gets the job done and it doesn't butcher the sound so bad that I want a return it. I'm not sure what else is out there like this though so best of luck if you find something that won't cost an arm/leg and need a PHD to operate. I'm digressing, but I looked and looked for the perfect device but I couldn't find anything that fit my bill, except for maybe the FMR RNC, but the price was to much for me. Maybe later later I'll pick it up as an upgrade over this.Here's my tips:1st off, this is my set up:LG TV connected to ROLLS LIMITER via RCA cablesROLLS LIMITER connected to a pair of active speakers via RCA cables2nd, my tips are made for watching movies, not music or keeping loud commercials at bay.Part 1: The set up1. Ignore the instructions, plug everything in, power up, and load up a movie with the worst dynamics.2. Turn the volume level midway on the external speakers and all the way up on your phone if screen casting the phone.3. Set the threshold all the way to the right.4. Optional, but I highly recommend installing an audio meter app(I tried a free one and it worked fine) to help you visually see the changes your making to your audio. Sometimes small changes can be hard to tell and the app should help clarify what your doing.Part 2: Time to experimentTo successfully accomplish what I have with my system, I need to explain a few things . . .If you ever seen a frequency graphic equalizer then you should have seen how the audio bars jump up as the audio gets played showing you the highs and lows of the audio. You will also have seen that the frequency light show on that equalizer only goes so high and it might even show red to anything that gets to high. The same idea is at play here with the gain control. The Rolls limiter has a ceiling, a 'limit' to all sound, the more you raise the gain the more frequencies you push to the top. You experience a rise in volume because more lower frequencies are being pushed higher up with the louder ones. Notice though, that the rise in gain raises softer sounds, what happens to the allready loud sounds? They hit the ceiling and distort. The more that hits this ceiling, the more distortion you introduce. Maxing out the gain with add distortion at all levels.However . . .for the Rolls limiter, it has a threshold nob you can adjust from -13Db to +6DB. What does this do? This adjusts the hight of the ceiling. For this limiter, all the way to the right(+6DB) is as a high as the ceiling will go. It's safe with this limiter to ignore the numbers for the threshold nob on top of the device and just know that turning it the right raises the ceiling and turning it to the left lowers it.Now we can have fun:There will be a bit of going back and forth. To get the best audio, you want the lowest gain and the highest ceiling for the threshold. You can do this by turning the gain to a low level, turning the threshold all the way to the right, and then raising the volume on the speakers to a level you like to hear at. As you might have guessed, doing this means virtually no change in audio, thus making the limiter pointless. So what now? Well . . . You do the best you can. There are 2 ways to handle this:1. Rely more on using the gain to do the heavy lifting for lowering the dynamic range by raising it and keeping the threshold as close as you can to the right2. Rely more on using the threshold to do the heavy lifting for lowering the dynamic range by keeping the gain lower and lowering the threshold to the leftWhats the difference?1. When you Rely on the gain your going to notice more distortions in your audio but since it'll be across the board and if you don't turn it up to high the distortions will be minimal or at worst bearable. You can lower the threshold in order to crush more of the louder sounds by turning it to the left but be careful because that will add additional distortion.2. When you rely on the threshold to do the heavy lifting, because the gain is lower, when turning the threshold counterclockwise, it's going to work its magic on the louder parts of the audio and attempt to leave the softer parts alone. In my experience, if you can rely more on the threshold, you should have better audio quality because less is being processed.Final bonus tips:1. The gain is not a volume nob even though it might act like it. Dont forget/neglect to adjust the volume level of the external speakers for any adjustments to the gain control. This applies to adjustments to the threshold as well because it too changes volume levels.2. If casting your phone audio to TV, your phone volume control will behave like the gain control on the Rolls Limiter. This can be helpful if say switching from watching movies to music you can simply lower the volume of your phone and raise the speaker volume. Experiment messing with phone volume level after your finished setting up the limiter for its main intended purpose.3. If you want to skip learning and use what I have mine set to then your in luck cause just point both nobs north and there you go, done. 🤷‍♂️

the unit was damaged.the make up/gain control was pushed in and all in pieces.it was packaged that way cause there was no damage to the box it came in.some quality control

Ça maintient le volume uniforme sur des appareils avec des prises RCA.

I run audio from my TV(line out-- straight signal) through my older stereo. Audio level is fine from local TV, as they process the signal, but on Roku and YouTube, the levels can vary pretty dramatically and I've been worried about inadvertently damaging the speakers. Got the limiter, set it to about the same level (OTA, DVD,VCR & Roku) and adjusted the threshold to just barely respond to those levels closest to my OTA stations (I don't have cable) and it responds to the channels/stations with the higher levels perfectly, keeping audio volume constant across the board. Input/output uses RCA unbalanced cable or 3.5 mm stereo. (I'm running RCA cable-- sounds great!) Works just as I hoped and doesn't add distortion. Very, very happy with the purchase. A fine piece of well made/built, simple to use equipment for the application I needed and ordered it for-- and at a great price. I highly recommend it for this type of application. Great service-- had the limiter in under a week.

I listen to a lot of different podcasts in my car, but often the dialog will go from very soft speech to suddenly very loud speech. So I found myself constantly adjusting the volume control, turning up quiet passages, and then frantically turning it back down again when things got loud. As much as I enjoy podcasts, this volume issue was a real pain, and often it actually hurt my ears when unexpected loud talking or other loud signals would occur. (In a perfect world, podcasters would figure out how to compress their audio signals as they record, but I'm not holding my breath...)If I had an unlimited budget, I'd love to have a studio quality compressor side chained with a 31 band EQ installed in my car so I could have full control over the dynamics of any program I listen to. But since that's impractical (or at least never gonna happen) I thought I'd give this Rolls limiter a try.You'll need to get a 12VDC car lighter plug with the correct end (+ outside / - center) to use this in a vehicle.Overall I'm very happy with it. Considering the price, I really can't ask for anything more. It does a great job of limiting any loud peaks in the audio. I had one particular podcast where the host was nice and loud, but the guest had a very quiet voice, and this device really did an excellent job of balancing them out. I could also see this being very helpful for watching TV, since often the volume of commercials is way louder than the program you were just watching.Now to be super picky: Obviously there are no attack/release controls, and since it's more of a limiter than a compressor, not having attack control is no problem. But it would be nice to have a release control. I know, that's being crazy picky, but it was the one thing I was concerned about before I ordering it. For the most part it does a really good job of leveling the volume out. I will never NOT use it going forward because it makes a huge improvement by limiting instantaneous spikes in volume. But... sometimes (depending on the program itself) you can hear the pumping effects of a compressor with too long a release time.One show in particular had a voice with explosive P's and B's and it really pumped the heck out of this thing, regardless of where I set the threshold. But to be fair, it's the audio source that sucked, and given that this tool is a "set and forget" type of device, I can't really fault it. I guess my point is that if I had my way, I'd like to control the release time myself.My last overly-critical observation is that it seems to work better on material which is already sufficiently loud. I have two MP3 players, and one has always been a little quieter than the other (one has to be turned up all the way for a decent volume, where as the other can be set to 75% for a good level) and without question, this Rolls device performs much smoother and is less pumpy with the louder MP3 player. Again, this is not really the fault of this limiter, but since it will affect your experience using it, I figured it was worth mentioning.I would still definitely recommend this product. My criticisms were provided to answer the questions I had prior to purchasing it, and hopefully they can help others who are wondering the same things.