Dual mono with REL Subwoofer

[martynbaker1]

It’s been a few weeks since I posted on this thread and said that I would report back after the REL open day I attended. 

The open day was at Nintronics in Welwyn Garden City with Rob from REL present to do the demonstrations. They had two REL No.25 subwoofers paired with Focal Maestro Utopia Evo III speakers for the Hifi demo and not surprisingly it sounded great. Even with these £45K speakers the subs added detail to the music across the whole frequency range plus the expected low end extension. The effect was subtle but instantly noticeable with sub on / off listening.

With special trade in deals to be had on the day it was easy to get carried away. I went there with the intention of possibly buying one sub but after hearing them in action I wanted the stereo pair. The No.25 is massive and I’d struggle to fit one beside my speakers let alone two, not to mention the fact that they cost £6.5K each so after a lot of procrastination I opted for two of the reference line G1 Mk2 which I reckoned I could just about fit in. So I traded in an old pair of Castle speakers and the deal was done. Over the next few days I started to have purchase regret and asked myself what the hell I was doing? But I decided to hold on and see if these would make much difference to my my system. 

About a week later Danny from Nintronics and Rob from REL turned up at my house to do the install. Rob recommended using the pre-outs on the back of the Devialets so I did the configuration for this but at first we couldn’t get it working. After a bit of head scratching it turned out that if you program the Tone button on the Devialet remote control for Sub On/Off it doesn’t work properly and we were getting odd results like one sub would work and the other would not. After changing this setting to Pre On/Off instead the second sub burst into life. I found this a bit odd and was also surprised at how little ‘help’ information in the configurator and on the Devialet website there seems to be for setting up subs, particularly if you are configuring a dual setup. Once we had solved this technical issue I left it up to the REL expert to position the subs for me and set the phase, crossovers, and levels. I was surprised how little adjustment was needed in the positioning to make a huge difference to the sound in the listening position. A couple of centimetres at a time made all the difference. As my system is now dual purpose Hifi and Home Theatre we tested the configuration in both modes and it seems that Rob got it just right. The installation was supposed to take about an hour but in reality it took more like 4 until Rob was happy with the setup and I was too. 

That evening I decided to give them the proper Hifi test to see if it had all been worth the expense and hassle and what I experienced was very surprising. The whole musical experience was transformed throughout the entire frequency range, the soundstage was increased massively around the whole room with much better imaging. Instruments and voices were all much more lifelike, warmer, and there was detail on the recordings that I had never heard before! It is hard to put into words how much better these subs make the entire experience and can only say of all the Hifi gear I’ve bought over the last 20 years nothing has had such a profound effect on my system as adding these 2 subwoofers. Needless to say the purchase regret has vanished. I have no idea how these can affect mid and high end sounds but they do and my system now sounds amazing and puts a big grin on my face every time I listen to it!

Wow frankly I’m just so jealous! Would love to have a pair of those in my setup! Congrats! Glad you’re enjoying them!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[audio_engr]

It’s been a few weeks since I posted on this thread and said that I would report back after the REL open day I attended. 

The open day was at Nintronics in Welwyn Garden City with Rob from REL present to do the demonstrations. They had two REL No.25 subwoofers paired with Focal Maestro Utopia Evo III speakers for the Hifi demo and not surprisingly it sounded great. Even with these £45K speakers the subs added detail to the music across the whole frequency range plus the expected low end extension. The effect was subtle but instantly noticeable with sub on / off listening.

With special trade in deals to be had on the day it was easy to get carried away. I went there with the intention of possibly buying one sub but after hearing them in action I wanted the stereo pair. The No.25 is massive and I’d struggle to fit one beside my speakers let alone two, not to mention the fact that they cost £6.5K each so after a lot of procrastination I opted for two of the reference line G1 Mk2 which I reckoned I could just about fit in. So I traded in an old pair of Castle speakers and the deal was done. Over the next few days I started to have purchase regret and asked myself what the hell I was doing? But I decided to hold on and see if these would make much difference to my my system. 

About a week later Danny from Nintronics and Rob from REL turned up at my house to do the install. Rob recommended using the pre-outs on the back of the Devialets so I did the configuration for this but at first we couldn’t get it working. After a bit of head scratching it turned out that if you program the Tone button on the Devialet remote control for Sub On/Off it doesn’t work properly and we were getting odd results like one sub would work and the other would not. After changing this setting to Pre On/Off instead the second sub burst into life. I found this a bit odd and was also surprised at how little ‘help’ information in the configurator and on the Devialet website there seems to be for setting up subs, particularly if you are configuring a dual setup. Once we had solved this technical issue I left it up to the REL expert to position the subs for me and set the phase, crossovers, and levels. I was surprised how little adjustment was needed in the positioning to make a huge difference to the sound in the listening position. A couple of centimetres at a time made all the difference. As my system is now dual purpose Hifi and Home Theatre we tested the configuration in both modes and it seems that Rob got it just right. The installation was supposed to take about an hour but in reality it took more like 4 until Rob was happy with the setup and I was too. 

That evening I decided to give them the proper Hifi test to see if it had all been worth the expense and hassle and what I experienced was very surprising. The whole musical experience was transformed throughout the entire frequency range, the soundstage was increased massively around the whole room with much better imaging. Instruments and voices were all much more lifelike, warmer, and there was detail on the recordings that I had never heard before! It is hard to put into words how much better these subs make the entire experience and can only say of all the Hifi gear I’ve bought over the last 20 years nothing has had such a profound effect on my system as adding these 2 subwoofers. Needless to say the purchase regret has vanished. I have no idea how these can affect mid and high end sounds but they do and my system now sounds amazing and puts a big grin on my face every time I listen to it!

I am glad you're witnessing what I did some 2-1/2 decades back when Richard Lord sold me a pair of his Studios. Indeed - they totally transform your listening experience !

[Antoine]

Congratulations @Laura on your purchase and succes story. So cool and ‘wise’ to have specialists over to help you with the setup. Enjoy!

[Laura]

Thanks guys,

@Jean-Marie Thanks for the tip, it sounds pretty damn good already but I'm open to experimentation so will give this a go at some point. 

@martynbaker1 lol, hopefully you'll be able to experience this in your system soon too, the biggest issues being a. the price as it was quite a leap of faith and b. having the room to fit them in. 

@audio_engr I'd read your findings earlier in this thread, but it's hard to believe the difference until you experience it for yourself, but now I understand   

@Antoine It was definitely an added bonus. I didn't realise that buying the subs came with included house visit and setup by REL themselves. As expected the guy knew exactly what to do to get the best setup rather than me fumbling about trying to do it myself.

Having had them for a week now there are a couple of issues to note. Firstly they have white LEDs on the front and back which can't be turned off, I'm not a fan of bright LEDs (my pet hate being blue ones!) so have covered them with tape to dim them down and secondly I've noticed that they are susceptible to some mains hum which currently stops them being completely silent when nothing is playing and can vary in volume. I'm going to contact REL about this but suspect I need some kind of mains conditioner as it makes no difference if RCA cables are plugged in or not, but am open to suggestions if anyone has had a similar problem.

[PeppaPig]

Hi Peppapig,

The Anti-modes are for low level connections only so using the pre-out on the Devialet.

They even out the bass response which can be problematic in many rooms. The graph sam1000 showed on the previous page isn’t very unusual. I’d say many people will find similar graphs when they measure their system/room response. Of course when one is used to high peaks initially the sound can appear to be lean but it isn’t when one also corrects the volume to integrate with the main speakers and of the course the sub is powerful enough to pressurize the room and in the right location. One can also ‘tailor’ the sound to their tastes after correction, it’s very common to apply a so called ‘house curve’ to the bass because our ears are less sensitive to the lower frequencies.

Correct, any DSP introduces delay. One can correct for that btw in the Devialet. It isn’t something I’ve heard though it is still on my list to address one day. It isn’t easy to measure that and I’ve found many, sometimes contradicting, techniques to measure it. Since it never bothered me I haven’t made it a high priority but I do know there’s room for improvement there. 

The Dual Core is multi-purpose. See also: http://www.dspeaker.com/en/products/20-dual-core.shtml

Thanks Antoine,

My REL are both using high level inputs, and I found it integrate with my main speaker really well when I moved it away from the wall and about 2cm behind the main speaker. No boomy at all, it makes music sound much thicker, border/fuller, so I can listen to it for a much longer period.

I probably won’t give up the high level input, I just upgraded the high level cables which costed me a bit of money, if I swap to low level for AntiMode it’s a big waste for me. But still, thanks for sharing it, one day I will try it out in my second system with AntiMode.

I fully understand! No problem of course, I’m not trying to sell anything here.

Question for @Antoine or others. I see your system lists 'analog' cables between the Devialet and Anti-Mode. Is this a pair of interconnects? Or just one cable? I am considering adding 2 RELs or another brand of subs to my 1000 Pro and have wondered if I use the A-M 8033S should it be a single cable from each amp to each 8033S or 2 cables (left/right)? If a single cable I'll need a total of 4 cables and if it is L/R then I'll need 8 cables. I am going to try both the Hi Level input and the Lo Level and see which sounds best. I have read that having a pair of cables to each sub may sound better under the Lo Level approach. 

Obviously if I go the Hi Level approach - the A-M 8033S isn't part of the equation.

Dan

I’m using a stereo pair of Nordost Heimdall between my Devialet and my Anti-Mode DC2.0 and connected two subwoofer cables (separate mono versions) in my system as someone here once mentioned it sounded better in his system. I started with mono links but wanted to try and couldn’t hear any difference in mine but was too lazy to remove the two cables and reconfigure again.

Most, if not all, subs accept a single ‘mono’ connection so I think you can save the extra four cables. However I’m not sure if you can configure two mono outs in the Devialet configurator. I have a single Devialet and single sub so this is unknown territory for me personally.

I’ve found Dspeaker support very helpful in the past so I’d check with them for sure for the Anti-Mode connections or perhaps someone else will chime in here.

Hi Antoine,

Can you try high level input with your AM?

And I read their website, they said in dual mono mode, it’s using left channel signal to feed both Left and Right channel which means Right channel information will be missing. I think it would be better if left channel goes to left sub and right channel goes to right sub.

So if I have a dual mono Devialet, I only use the master to connect to the AM and then AM connects to both left and right sub?

[PeppaPig]

It’s been a few weeks since I posted on this thread and said that I would report back after the REL open day I attended. 

The open day was at Nintronics in Welwyn Garden City with Rob from REL present to do the demonstrations. They had two REL No.25 subwoofers paired with Focal Maestro Utopia Evo III speakers for the Hifi demo and not surprisingly it sounded great. Even with these £45K speakers the subs added detail to the music across the whole frequency range plus the expected low end extension. The effect was subtle but instantly noticeable with sub on / off listening.

With special trade in deals to be had on the day it was easy to get carried away. I went there with the intention of possibly buying one sub but after hearing them in action I wanted the stereo pair. The No.25 is massive and I’d struggle to fit one beside my speakers let alone two, not to mention the fact that they cost £6.5K each so after a lot of procrastination I opted for two of the reference line G1 Mk2 which I reckoned I could just about fit in. So I traded in an old pair of Castle speakers and the deal was done. Over the next few days I started to have purchase regret and asked myself what the hell I was doing? But I decided to hold on and see if these would make much difference to my my system. 

About a week later Danny from Nintronics and Rob from REL turned up at my house to do the install. Rob recommended using the pre-outs on the back of the Devialets so I did the configuration for this but at first we couldn’t get it working. After a bit of head scratching it turned out that if you program the Tone button on the Devialet remote control for Sub On/Off it doesn’t work properly and we were getting odd results like one sub would work and the other would not. After changing this setting to Pre On/Off instead the second sub burst into life. I found this a bit odd and was also surprised at how little ‘help’ information in the configurator and on the Devialet website there seems to be for setting up subs, particularly if you are configuring a dual setup. Once we had solved this technical issue I left it up to the REL expert to position the subs for me and set the phase, crossovers, and levels. I was surprised how little adjustment was needed in the positioning to make a huge difference to the sound in the listening position. A couple of centimetres at a time made all the difference. As my system is now dual purpose Hifi and Home Theatre we tested the configuration in both modes and it seems that Rob got it just right. The installation was supposed to take about an hour but in reality it took more like 4 until Rob was happy with the setup and I was too. 

That evening I decided to give them the proper Hifi test to see if it had all been worth the expense and hassle and what I experienced was very surprising. The whole musical experience was transformed throughout the entire frequency range, the soundstage was increased massively around the whole room with much better imaging. Instruments and voices were all much more lifelike, warmer, and there was detail on the recordings that I had never heard before! It is hard to put into words how much better these subs make the entire experience and can only say of all the Hifi gear I’ve bought over the last 20 years nothing has had such a profound effect on my system as adding these 2 subwoofers. Needless to say the purchase regret has vanished. I have no idea how these can affect mid and high end sounds but they do and my system now sounds amazing and puts a big grin on my face every time I listen to it!

Great feedback!!!

May I ask why REL recommends pre-out for your Devialet instead of using High level input? General they recommend use high level input.

Have you ever got a chance to hear the S5 SHO and compare it with the G1? How much difference?

[Antoine]

Thanks Antoine,

My REL are both using high level inputs, and I found it integrate with my main speaker really well when I moved it away from the wall and about 2cm behind the main speaker. No boomy at all, it makes music sound much thicker, border/fuller, so I can listen to it for a much longer period.

I probably won’t give up the high level input, I just upgraded the high level cables which costed me a bit of money, if I swap to low level for AntiMode it’s a big waste for me. But still, thanks for sharing it, one day I will try it out in my second system with AntiMode.

I fully understand! No problem of course, I’m not trying to sell anything here.

Question for @Antoine or others. I see your system lists 'analog' cables between the Devialet and Anti-Mode. Is this a pair of interconnects? Or just one cable? I am considering adding 2 RELs or another brand of subs to my 1000 Pro and have wondered if I use the A-M 8033S should it be a single cable from each amp to each 8033S or 2 cables (left/right)? If a single cable I'll need a total of 4 cables and if it is L/R then I'll need 8 cables. I am going to try both the Hi Level input and the Lo Level and see which sounds best. I have read that having a pair of cables to each sub may sound better under the Lo Level approach. 

Obviously if I go the Hi Level approach - the A-M 8033S isn't part of the equation.

Dan

I’m using a stereo pair of Nordost Heimdall between my Devialet and my Anti-Mode DC2.0 and connected two subwoofer cables (separate mono versions) in my system as someone here once mentioned it sounded better in his system. I started with mono links but wanted to try and couldn’t hear any difference in mine but was too lazy to remove the two cables and reconfigure again.

Most, if not all, subs accept a single ‘mono’ connection so I think you can save the extra four cables. However I’m not sure if you can configure two mono outs in the Devialet configurator. I have a single Devialet and single sub so this is unknown territory for me personally.

I’ve found Dspeaker support very helpful in the past so I’d check with them for sure for the Anti-Mode connections or perhaps someone else will chime in here.

Hi Antoine,

Can you try high level input with your AM?

And I read their website, they said in dual mono mode, it’s using left channel signal to feed both Left and Right channel which means Right channel information will be missing. I think it would be better if left channel goes to left sub and right channel goes to right sub.

So if I have a dual mono Devialet, I only use the master to connect to the AM and then AM connects to both left and right sub?

Hi Peppapig, as far as I know the AM2.0 I use can’t be used for high level input. I do believe there are/were adapters/high to low level adapters for the 8033 (and perhaps AM2.0) which simply attenuated the signal but I don’t have one. I also don’t see a need and I actually use a high pass filter to my main speakers (2nd order @80Hz) configured in the Devialet to free up my mains a bit. I also came to this configuration using REW for measurements and listening tests.

With a dual mono Devialet one could always configure a stereo pre-out on the Devialet and feed the left output to one sub and the right to the other. But again I have no experience with this type of setups so could be wrong. This page says it can do both 0.2 stereo and 0.2 dual mono so it looks like it’s possible though. http://www.dspeaker.com/en/technology/an...ples.shtml

‘Note: Two subwoofers can be calibrated for 0.2 stereo playback, or for 0.2 dual-mono. In dual-mono operation, left input is fed to both left and right subwoofer outputs.”

[PeppaPig]

I fully understand! No problem of course, I’m not trying to sell anything here.


I’m using a stereo pair of Nordost Heimdall between my Devialet and my Anti-Mode DC2.0 and connected two subwoofer cables (separate mono versions) in my system as someone here once mentioned it sounded better in his system. I started with mono links but wanted to try and couldn’t hear any difference in mine but was too lazy to remove the two cables and reconfigure again.

Most, if not all, subs accept a single ‘mono’ connection so I think you can save the extra four cables. However I’m not sure if you can configure two mono outs in the Devialet configurator. I have a single Devialet and single sub so this is unknown territory for me personally.

I’ve found Dspeaker support very helpful in the past so I’d check with them for sure for the Anti-Mode connections or perhaps someone else will chime in here.

Hi Antoine,

Can you try high level input with your AM?

And I read their website, they said in dual mono mode, it’s using left channel signal to feed both Left and Right channel which means Right channel information will be missing. I think it would be better if left channel goes to left sub and right channel goes to right sub.

So if I have a dual mono Devialet, I only use the master to connect to the AM and then AM connects to both left and right sub?

Hi Peppapig, as far as I know the AM2.0 I use can’t be used for high level input. I do believe there are/were adapters/high to low level adapters for the 8033 (and perhaps AM2.0) which simply attenuated the signal but I don’t have one. I also don’t see a need and I actually use a high pass filter to my main speakers (2nd order @80Hz) configured in the Devialet to free up my mains a bit. I also came to this configuration using REW for measurements and listening tests.

With a dual mono Devialet one could always configure a stereo pre-out on the Devialet and feed the left output to one sub and the right to the other. But again I have no experience with this type of setups so could be wrong. This page says it can do both 0.2 stereo and 0.2 dual mono so it looks like it’s possible though. http://www.dspeaker.com/en/technology/an...ples.shtml

‘Note: Two subwoofers can be calibrated for 0.2 stereo playback, or for 0.2 dual-mono. In dual-mono operation, left input is fed to both left and right subwoofer outputs.”

I have a concern about feeding both left and right sub from the left signal. I think it should feed left sub from the left mono block, and right sub from right mono block.

[Antoine]

Hi @PeppaPig

I understand but I’m not sure if that’s possible and have no experience here with my single 250 Pro. When I look at the advanced configurator for a dual Devialet there does seem to be the option to select left or right (and mono) for each Devialet mono block for the ‘mix’ option after you’ve configured a pre-out but I’m not sure if that does what you want. The help function doesn’t seem to work on my iPad otherwise I could have read what it is supposed to do. Perhaps someone else knows or otherwise maybe Devialet support can help.

Edit; I also wrote in my previous post that one could configure a stereo pre-out but after looking at the configurator for a dual mono unit but this does not seem to be correct since one of the outputs on each block is used for the link between the blocks.

[PeppaPig]

Hi @PeppaPig

I understand but I’m not sure if that’s possible and have no experience here with my single 250 Pro. When I look at the advanced configurator for a dual Devialet there does seem to be the option to select left or right (and mono) for each Devialet mono block for the ‘mix’ option after you’ve configured a pre-out but I’m not sure if that does what you want. The help function doesn’t seem to work on my iPad otherwise I could have read what it is supposed to do. Perhaps someone else knows or otherwise maybe Devialet support can help.

Edit; I also wrote in my previous post that one could configure a stereo pre-out but after looking at the configurator for a dual mono unit but this does not seem to be correct since one of the outputs on each block is used for the link between the blocks.

Hi Antoine,

I am using high level input for my REL. So automatically the left sub is picking up signal from the left side channel, and the right sub does the same. In any section in the music if there is no signal on left or right channel the sub will pick up nothing from that side.

If AM is only picking up from one side and feed to both side’s subs, I feel like it’s a big step backward.

May be there are a way to workaround it, I haven’t done enough research on the AM yet. But looking at their website, if they put notes saying dual mono is only feed by left side signal I guess most likely it is how it works?

I am very happy with the pair of REL S5 SHO, only less than 3 weeks I have ordered a pair of REL 212/SE, and cannot wait to see them!!