Unlimited Reflection Filter Works – SE Electronics RF Space Acoustic Isolator
SE Electronics RF Space is a $229 USD acoustic isolator for microphones, designed for recording studios, and places that don’t have a perfect acoustic treatment, but where you’d want to record without echo and with a lower distortion than the room would allow. Today we will review the RF Space Acoustic isolator and study how well it works with both shotgun microphones but also other types of microphones.
Introduction
SE Electronics is a popular company creating microphones, and they made something I always wanted to test and implement in my recording environment, so today we check out how you can make your recording rig better without expensive acoustic treatment applied to the entire room. As I still refuse to use green screen, I can’t really lay a thick anti-echo carpet on my walls, so something like the RF Space Acoustic Isolator can heavily improve the quality of my recordings, including the voice recording in my Youtube videos without me having to move from the place I am currently renting. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases, and using the purchase links in my reviews helps me maintain this website and Youtube Channel. Huge thanks to Keces for providing us with the sample for this review.
PROs – It works well, does not need anything else besides the isolator, great for both voice acting and video recording, works well with both Shotgun and ultra portable and even lavalier microphones, if your recording options are limited.
Cons – Quite heavy and large, visible in video if using a shotgun microphone.
Product Link
Amazon – https://amzn.to/4hMMwmJ
Build Quality/Aesthetics
SE Electronics created the largest and most effective acoustic isolator for microphones, and the new RF Space has a larger surface area, enhancement of SE’s patented multi-layer technology, with deeper air gaps, and more efficient materials. RF Space is hand built by the SE team at their factory, with a balanced and acoustically neutral environment for your microphone.
When it comes to recording, most microphones record both your voice, or instrument, but also the room around you. Reflections bounce off the walls of your room, and generally back into the microphone, audible as echo or distortion, depending on the loudness you’re singing or playing at. This means that most microphones, even those recording an instrument can benefit from additional acoustic isolation, and as it is generally very hard to cover all walls in an acoustically inert material, a product like the RF Space Isolator can heavily improve your recordings.
SE Electronics did a little trick with the RF Space, as they created a system that allows you to lock it vertically, horizontally or in any position you may need. It is ideal to have the microphone with the back pointing at the isolator, as that is where most reflections get picked, although you can experiment, and depending on the room and your proximity to the closest walls, you can remove and isolate almost all your interference and reflections.
You can install the Reflexion Filter on a Boom Stand, microphone stand and even on a simple vertical stand, with the included hardware. For my experiments, I have installed a Rode NTG-3B microphone inside the RF Space Acoustic Isolator, and also have tried moving my head close to the isolator while recording using a Rode Wireless Go II Microphone System to test whether it can help with smaller, lavalier microphones. Installing the RF Space is very easy, but it is very large and visible in a room, and cannot be made smaller.
Sound Quality
I actually have made a video review where you can explore the differences first person, as that video has no audio post processing, just the sound recorded with and without the RF Space using the same microphone and same room, same position. My subjective impression is that without any kind of post processing, the sound comes out much cleaner, with next to zero reflections, which gives the feeling of a much higher quality recording.
Even if I am using a lavalier microphone, or a mini wireless microphone, placing myself and the microphone close inside the RF Space will cancel reflections and produce a higher quality recording, leading to a much more pleasing final result. As many of you may be aware, many people, including myself, consume Youtube Videos similar to an audio book.
As may subscribes told me that they follow my videos with no video, just listening to them, I always try to improve the audio quality in my videos, and RF Space is one of the tools that heavily improves the quality without needing me to move from my home or purchasing expensive and usually fairly unappealing acoustic panels.
If a room is already acoustically treated, there is not much that an RF Space Acoustic Isolator will do for that room, but in a standard room with zero treatment, it can make a drastic difference between a good recording and a bad recording, and that can directly translate to your online success and how visible you are with your video content.
I believe it is too large and uncomfortable to use for movie recording, being rather heavy to use with a boom pole, but for voice acting it can drastically improve the quality of your recordings.
Value and Conclusion
We get a rather low quoted price from SE Electronics, for an effective acoustic reflection isolator, and when using a microphone, it brings the biggest improvement after upgrading your microphone and your interface, so if you don’t yet have a high quality acoustic treatment for your room, or if you have zero acoustic treatment, you can upgrade your recordings instantly, with the RF Space being one of the most affordable ways of upgrading your mic rig, while being one of the most effective ones too.
At the end of the day, I wanted to get something a bit cheaper at first, but the acoustic isolation materials used by SE electronics are the highest quality ones, which will create an acoustically neutral and transparent recording. You can theoretically just layer a blanket behind the microphone, but it is even harder to keep consistent such a setup, and it also is not as effective as RF Space is. If there is any addition, I would seriously recommend having carpets in the room you’re recording, because RF Space covers a 180 degree of space, but not the top and the bottom of the field.
Product Link
Amazon – https://amzn.to/4hMMwmJ
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Full Playlist used for this review
We listened to more songs than those named in this playlist, but those are excellent for identifying a sonic signature. I recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you’re searching for new music! The playlists are different for Spotify, Tidal and Youtube, and based on the songs I enjoy and are available on each!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_cjBXGmwSHSdGcwuc_bKbBDGHL4QvYBu
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5J3oloz8Riy9LxEGenOjQ0?si=979ba4f082414be7
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/330fd544-8e5b-4839-bd35-676b2edbb3d5
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