Congratulations on the successful implementation of the flagship REL No. 25. I recently added a sub to my system and share the enthusiasm. In my case, it’s slightly different as the sub, a PMC TLE1 has been in and out of my system(s) for 15 years. I have not managed to successfully integrate the sub to the main speakers after all these years, and at one point the sub was put in cold storage for about 5 years.
To cut to the chase, the recent experience of adding the sub to the system has been rather positive, the first time in 15 years. I’m not sure if it’s the new room, new speakers or quality of the amp. Nevertheless, I am quite certain that the placement of the sub in the room is crucial in determining a success or failure of the integration especially with single subs.
I was made to understand that the best placement of a single sub is right in the middle between the speakers, and it is good to note that your REL is placed in this manner. As I couldn’t place the sub in the middle of the speakers, I initially tried corner placement and the result was horrible. I then placed the sub directly behind the left speaker with slightly better results. In the end, the sub got between the speakers, closer to the left speaker but not in the middle. Quite a fantastic result with a rather seamless integration I would say.
The crossover frequency on the sub was set at 62 Hz, volume at 75% and phase 0.
For anyone who can accommodate a sub or a pair, it is highly recommended that you go for it.
The CR-1 can be used with any subwoofer that has RCA, XLR or both types of inputs. However based on my experience to unleash the CR-1’s potential three things worth bearing in mind are -
All parameters preceding the CR-1 have to correctly set.
Ideally using a high crossover setting on the CR-1 of 80Hz and above.
The sub/s must be capable of playing cleanly up to and 80Hz and above.
Thanks for the info!
I do not have a sub(s) but am intrigued at what they may bring…Just doing some homework first
Thanks for your contributions.
ATB,
Mark
There is a caveat though. If right between the speakers is equadistant to any two parallel walls this causes standing waves and can be just awful. Multiply the awfulness by two if downward firing. But this is stating the obvious I think. Every sub user manual I’ve seen warns against equadistant parallel wall placement and corner placement. I’ve done both sins out of room necessity in the past. Corner was worse.
It’s important not to discount corner placement altogether as in certain scenarios it works well. In my room with two subs, corner placement for both subs behind the main speakers was by far and away the best position. In fact it’s a recommended location for twin subs:
"Unit Placement FIG 1A: Because RELs are engineered to produce foundational low bass, it is beneficial to place pairs into front structural corners, immediately behind the main front speakers. Turned inward toward the center of the room to a position that points directly or almost directly at the prime listening location"
(taken from the REL website)
I experimented a fair bit and this was clearly the best option.
That’s good to know. Based on the advice I received from another forum, corner placement with single subs is not good. However, dual subs are said to have the potential of working well in the corners.
The peculiar thing with corner placement in my room is the sound got worse even though the sub is switched off. Yes, the sound got worse with a sub that isn’t working! It appears that the physical presence of the box in the corner of the room has brought a negative impact to the sound quality of the system. The sub was placed very close to the walls though, about 1 to 2 inches of space from the side and rear walls.
When done right, it’s a rewarding result. The trick is to have a smoothest bass response without anything sticking out like a sore thumb. I’ve managed to do some fine tuning with the placement after locating the ideal spot for the sub. It was moved left and right, front and back several times by 1 to 2 inches around the space. To my amazement, the bass sounded different when the sub was moved by just an inch. Interesting eye (ear) opener for me.
I do not have experience with dual subs but have read that they usually work well with corner placement. It is single subs that don’t work well in the corners.
Totally believable. The basis for the single speaker pair dem rooms mandated by Linn in the early days was because cones of unused speakers would move sympathetically with sound waves from the playing speakers and change the sound. Enough for them to make single speaker dem rooms a dealer contract requirement. Any speakers not used must at least be connected to a powered on amp. Shorting terminals and other dampening measures were not permitted.
After reading quite a bit about integrating subs other the last few days I’m keen to have a go and see how it might impact my setup. Few quick questions if I may:
I see a lot about connections requiring a resistor - I have a 3m pair of Mogami 2964 RCA to hand. Would it be ok to try and use these?
Without a resistor is there the potential to damage my SN3 or just affect sound quality?
I have a B&W ASW610 on my HT which I thought I could try connecting in first instance. Would this be sufficient quality to give me a fair idea of whether a sub would work for me before investing more money?
Presumably all parameters includes sub placement such that at the listening position there is a positive or equal amount of bass across the lower frequencies from say 80hz down compared to the higher frequencies provided by the main speakers.
I can understand lowering the gain at the boosted frequency to bring a standing wave into line but if there is a pronounced dip caused by cancelling waves surely increasing the gain at that frequency will simply maintain the cancellation.
I always use a hi-level connection for stereo use on RELs, but for a pair I twisted the red and yellow cables together on each of the supplied hi-level cables to give me a positive and then left the black alone for a negative. I then connect them to their respective terminals on the back of the speaker. I find this much easier than trying to add them to the back of the amp, plus the subs are right next to the speakers so it’s much neater than running cables back round the room.
This is a perfectly acceptable method as per the below which I took from the REL website: “Note: You connect your left and right main speakers to the same terminals on your receiver or amplifier as the REL high level connection. If more convenient you can also attach the high level cable to the terminals on your main left and right speakers without any loss of signal quality.”
For those considering subs for their Hi-Fi might one want to read this. Sure great for home theatre or low frequency SFX , but Hi-Fi think carefully. I agree with these comments and align with my experiences in my music production world as well as trying to get subs integrated in my Hi-Fi in the past.
Phase and transient alignment is so important for music not to sound smeared and in distinct in the sub bass… usually accurate design goes into a Hi-Fi speaker to get this as good as it can be within the design constraints. A separate sub(s) is often a different and challenging proposition with Hi-Fi speakers for quality audio.
If you feel you simply must scratch this itch, then see if you can borrow a sub(s) first and are able to setup before splashing out. If you can try and use a sub with a variable phase to tune the least compromise sweet spot for the frequencies you want to emphasise in your listening position. A 0 or 180 degree switch is great for home theatre, but often not accurate enough for Hi-Fi tuning.
And to be fair I should state @Musicraft doesnt agree with these or most of these views… so please just take mine and the referenced view as a viewpoint.
Sure… he and I seem to have very different experiences, so I assume some on here might have the same experiences as myself and and some of my associates. Of course, there are others who will have no issue. I am not saying you can’t have a sub for Hi-Fi use, clearly you can, it’s just to get the same transient and phase performance level from your Hi-Fi speakers it will take much careful effort, positioning and setup unless you are lucky.
Sure but there are very true generalisations, and unwavering absolutes. We are dealing with the former. I’d also agree that a sub shouldn’t be used for music stereo. It’s a true generalisation in my opinion. Yet I’ve heard some exceptions of carefully chosen and dealer installed subs where it was a great improvement. Almost always in the context of a 1 or two-way main speaker pair as opposed to a three-way speaker… which basically incorporate perfectly matched passive subs already.
To be fair to PMC they do describe the importance of boundary placement and phase alignment tuning with your Hi-Fi speakers in their setup guide to get a commensurate performance. (As clearly at the crossover there is much shared frequency space. - the PMC filter is 12dB per octave and your Hi-Fi speakers could be less than that)
Excuse the lack of knowledge on my part here, for I am not trying to disagree with anyone about this.
In what way is using a pair of high performance REL, JL Audio or Wilson Benesch subs different to having a pair of Naim DBLs, Kudos Titan 808s or Wilson Sasha DAW speakers?
All of them effectively have a box (or two) for the mid range + tweeter, with a separate box for the bass driver. How is this different than having a pair of subs, especially if you include the JL Audio active bass crossover in the system?
Isn’t this more a shades of grey debate rather than one of absolute black & white?
