****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
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.
