Subwoofer

[f1eng]

Hi all,

I am using subs since 1981 - the first time I bought Quad electrostatics (ESL57-stacked) and have a lot of experience with it. It's a science for sure:

1. I own The Rel StudioII, the Rel StentorII and the Rel StadiumIII at the same time and all for more than 15 years now.... I use the Rel StentorII in combination with the Devialet Pro220 and the newest Quad ESL2812(bought 2015new) and Kef RDMtwo and Quad 707 in surround on the Oppo 105D, the Studio in combination with Kef RDMone and Quad 707 amplification with Oppo 103EU, The Stadium with Quad22 speakers and a Denon AVR-X3000 surround amp. Two different houses; now in three rooms.

2. I tried Velodybe, Kef, Audio-Pro and B&W subs as well, but the only subs which can go allong with the quality of the undistorted Quad sound are Rels. And it's also a design thing: Rel is really designed not to add low frequencies to the sound: it's designed to add qualtity to the sound. It's very strange but when a top Rel is good implemented into the sound system, the quality of the MIDRANGE is incredibly better then without such a sub. The clarity, the depth, the sound stage, a Rel makes such a huge difference. And with Quad electrostatics the midrange is good; believe me.

3. Most people don't know this and almost always the sub is really not implemented well into the system; the Rel table is:
Coarse  Fine   Strata   Storm   Stadium   Stentor/ Studio

1           1       30        30        25               25
1           2       33        33        26               26
1           3       36        36        28               28
1           4       39        39        30               30
2           1       43        43        32               32
etc etc
Tip: You only need the first 4 settings named here. The best way is connecting the sub parallel to the speaker output, leave the speakers full range and set the sub very low and turn up the volume of the sub quite high. With the Quads the sub is set at coarse 1, fine 2: 26 Hz. The Quad are measuring 32 Hz - 6 dB, so try a rather low frequency setting.

4. I bought specialized Van den Hul sub cable to try the active Devialet sub output. Waist of money of course: the design of a Rel is to implement into the sound system and therefore the signal of the power-amplifier MUST go into the Rel-sub. The speed, the quality; everthing must go into the sub to benefit from the design. So please set-up SAM as good as possible as you would listen without a sub and voila....

5. Audio Quest makes a special speaker cable for Rel subs. Look and search on the web site. You can order it at your dealer: beautiful and usefull.

6. I tried the Devialet in a active way as a pre out: sub filtered at 12Hz 24/octave in combination with the Clearaudio turntable with TT arm and with the sub out (all settings tried). On paper this was beautifull: in practise the Rel way keeps the best way by far... The disappearing act is far away in this active way.

7. For every sub-woofer user-try to google on "Rel set-up made simple" and read the 5 pages carefully: "things before you begin, connecting, positioning, the process, phase, room orientation, placement, crossover and gain settings, theater and film applications". Very usefull information indeed.

8. Underneath your sub (and speakers also by the way) you can best place a tumbstone; brilliant and cheap. I ordered them exactly made at a funeral company: also for under my Oppo105D with spikes firering downwards. The next step can be completed with Nordost cones, Clearaudio cones etc


At last to remember: a good sub adds no bass, but raises the quality of the sound substantially. As long as you have't that feeling yet, you're not there! I hope somebody liked this information.

I may be wrong here, but I am pretty sure the REL power amp connection method can't be used with bridged amps since it will earth one leg of the amp.
So connecting up this way will probably not be an option with any of the dual mono Devialets (440, 1000, O d'A), I certainly chose not to risk it!