That's a good question. In a Car you certainly get it but at home I wonder? My listening room is in my basement and it's a leaky mess from a sealed room perspective. I get the pant's flapping and the "shudder" for lack of a better word but wonder if it's just the volume of air displaced that giving the feeling of preasurization. We are also listening to sinewaves of sorts so for every peak there is also a negative cycle. If they were equal the net sum would be zero.
So what is actually going on?? Is the low frequency assualt on our ears and body that makes us feel like the room is preasurized or is there an actual presurization?? According to the posted reference my room dimensions should not be giving that much gain 23 x 13 x 8.
Rob
We will have to agree on a definition and stick to it to move on and discuss the phenomenon. If it is the sensation of sound on our ears, then it happens whenever the SPL is high. It can be painful if it the frequency of the sound is in the region our our ears max sensitivity .. the midband between say 600 Hz and 3 Khz ... We feel this as loud, very loud and a pressure to the ears. I wouldn't call this room pressurization.
My defintion fo Room Pressurization is that of feeling a build up of pressure in the room as felt by the ear and body... That is done in the bass nowhere else. As noted very judiciously by Soundproof, air doesn't move from the speakers to our ears but the pressure gradient does move throughout the room. It can be felt with aproperly sealed room. A large room may not convey that impression even under good bass response. Certain woofers do move alot of air , The Genesis 1 did move a lot of air more so than any system I have heard and in a room with the proper seal, The Gen 1 audition is a singular experience.. You feel you clothes moving and the air shudder... The Pipedreams are not too shabby by the way on this phenomenon I was about to forget them ... Especially when you have 4 Depth Charges subs (Are these bandpass?).. I would suppose the Scaenas to be good in this regard as well ...
It seems that some woofer loading are better at coupling with the air in a room to produce that effect. Bandpass subwoofers in particular are known to make you feel the air being compressed in a room , more so than sealed which tend to be better than bass-reflex in this regard... I have never had a bandpass subwoofer so can only relate what I read.
As for people description on how they react to different media, it is something I would approach with a lot of care. if someone likes a given medium, it is certain that they approach it with a different mindset, thus subjective impression will change. That is good, that is the purpose of having a sound reproduction system, for its owners to enjoy, even it is by just looking at them. I would prefer however not to fall into describing this sensation as pressurization, especially when another medium tend to excel in the band of frequency where pressurization not figuratively but really, physically occurs.
As for my jib toward we, audiophiles having the tendency to change words meaning, if it looked like a put-down, I apologize, it wasn't meant as such. It remains that we, audiophiles, tend to use too loose a vocabulary, we have changed words meaning to a point where they mean, everything and nothing. When words start losing their meaning discussions become , vacuous and useless.This discussion, hopefully, will allow us to develop a common language so as to make of our experiences something useful to the other members.
@Robh3606
Later for a better answer on your very interesting questions wil fish for the references and if you care the math