Pressure Zones and the Ensuing Confusion They Bring

Are you feeling like this about now over the concept of pressure zones and how to find and use them to your advantage in your room?



If you have been following the thread on pressure zones by Michael on Tunable Systems, unless you actually perform the listening exercises that Michael explains, none of this is going to make sense to you. But, actually, the newer you are to variable tuning, the easier it will be for you to perform these exercises and experience the results. Why, you ask? Because, the newer you are to variable tuning, the more things you have available to you to open up sonically in your system. The more advanced you are in variable tuning, you have to then introduce something new to elicit a significant change you can hear and experiment with your pressure zones.

I found the “edge” of the listening position pressure zone in my room and placed my head on the edge of that zone near the listening position. I did the same for my speaker positions by placing them a half inch closer to each wall.

I mentioned that I found that my room’s mathematical common denominator was 18 inches (partials and multiples). You can’t find this common denominator by measuring first. Find the zones and their edges, position things, listen, refine your listening and when things are sounding good, then do your measurements and you realize the mathematical relationships by measuring distances like the distance of your head from the rear wall, the distance of your racks (if they are centrally located on the front wall) from the front wall, the distance your speakers are from the side wall, the distances between your PZCs, the distances between your PZCs and Sound Shutters, distance between your speakers, distance from your listening position to the plane between your speakers, etc.

If you find one of these measured locations way out of whack with the others (again, the distances may be multiples or partials of the common denominator), I guarantee you that you have a problem with your sound and that you can hear it. You may find that 20 inches (and multiples/partials) is the common denominator for your room. My point is that it will be different for each room and the only way to find it is to “listen” for it. You can’t start by measuring first. You must first “listen”, find the right locations for everything and when you have things the way you want them sonically, do the measurements and you will then see the mathematical relationships of your room and its contents.

So, if you are confused with all this, give Michael feedback and say so. There is nothing to feel embarrassed about if you feel lost at this point. I am still learning also and I do not hesitate to ask Michael when I have made a discovery to find out if my conclusion is correct. So, don’t be shy about asking questions on this stuff. The only person who is not confused about this stuff is Michael. He’s just confused in other ways Laughing.
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Jim Bookhard