I know this has been talked about before, but I wanted to ask a question or two on the subject.
I recently bought a REL T5x and am using the low pass input. The low pass input plugs into a Y rca cable that is plugged into my SN2 preamp outs. It sounds really good. Of course, using the high level connector on the SN2 amp terminals is not possible, because the SN2 has particular speaker terminals.
I helped my brother hook up another REL T5x to his rega Aethos, that has normal amp speaker terminals. We tried it both ways: with the low input on the sub, and with the high level connection, connected to his amp terminals. The high level connection is much better!
This got me to thinking, I might be losing some performance (using the low level input on the sub).
I have read about using the high level connection on the speaker binding posts. From what I understand, I would need to do the following.
First cut the supplied high level speakon cable to the proper length (it is very long). Then open up the sheath. My speakers are about 7-8 feet apart. I would need to strip off enough of the sheath, so that the red is plugged on the positive terminal of the right speaker. Then I would plug the yellow wire to the positive of the left speaker. Finally, the black wire to the negative terminal of one of the speakers.
Is this correct? Thanks for reading!
Rel subs do tend to work best with a high level connection, so I think you are right to give it a try.
Splitting the outer sheath of the supplied cable works if you connect to the loudspeakers. Alternatively you could have a cable made up if you don’t like the idea of doing this. A supplier like Designacable would be a good option for this.
Another possibility is to use a cable specifically designed to connect a Naim power amp to a Rel sub. This uses stacking banana plugs to make it easy to connect both them and the main speaker cables to the amp. Rel themselves make such a cable, but it’s rather expensive. Designacable make a much cheaper version.
Thanks for the information Chris!
When I had just one REL sub this is exactly what I did. Now I have two REL subs, so each gets its own cable connection to each speaker, which is much tidier and requires much shorter hi-level cables. What I do for that is use a REL Bassline Blue 3m cable. I cut it in half and terminated the cut ends to make a 1.5m stereo pair.
I have the designacable version and it works quite well. I used the speaker connections and it was not as good.
I made a cable for this myself and it cost me less than £20. I bought three lengths of speaker cable. I believe it was QED Silver Anniversary or something. Unscrew the original SpeakOn plug and then one by one remove each cable from it’s block inside, and replace it with one of your QED lengths. It’s all just screwed into place, so you don’t need to do anything destructive. Screw the SpeakOn back together and attach a spade to each end of your new cable and then attach two to the black and red posts of one speaker and one to the red post of the other. All done. It costs pennies, is non-destructive and looks smart if you want to go down the route of fancying it up with shrink wrapping etc.
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