Well, with all due respect...Live unamplified music isn't 'musical' as a reproduction system can make it
(warning - possibly slightly disrespectful comment incoming)
That just sounds like nonsense to me.
Well, with all due respect...Live unamplified music isn't 'musical' as a reproduction system can make it
Have you ever owned a nice vintage valve amp from ARC and others, Naim Nait mk1, Sony TA5650, early A&R A60, Supex 900E pickup (or early Koetsu Red derivative), Tangent TM1 or RS4 speakers, Rega and Audio Alchemy dacs and others with tailored 'user friendly' performance and responses? All I suspect with measurement flaws (some definitely and severely) but all having a supremely 'musical/tuneful' - whatever - delivery which charms the pants off the listener, but which is far removed from 'reality' which can hurt (standing a few feet from an enthusiastically played drum kit, or brass instrument - ohm and woodwinds can have a 'reedy' quality and 'body of' timbre that many domestic sound systems smooth over too much). I still feel today that there's a difference between a 'good sound' truthful to the original as far as possible and a 'nice' one which is like a comfy pair of slippers (without the pipe in my case)Well, with all due respect...
(warning - possibly slightly disrespectful comment incoming)
That just sounds like nonsense to me.
I think perhaps my problem is with the term "musical"Have you ever owned a nice vintage valve amp from ARC and others, Naim Nait mk1, Sony TA5650, early A&R A60, Supex 900E pickup (or early Koetsu Red derivative), Tangent TM1 or RS4 speakers, Rega and Audio Alchemy dacs and others with tailored 'user friendly' performance and responses? All I suspect with measurement flaws (some definitely and severely) but all having a supremely 'musical/tuneful' - whatever - delivery which charms the pants off the listener, but which is far removed from 'reality' which can hurt (standing a few feet from an enthusiastically played drum kit, or brass instrument - ohm and woodwinds can have a 'reedy' quality and 'body of' timbre that many domestic sound systems smooth over too much). I still feel today that there's a difference between a 'good sound' truthful to the original as far as possible and a 'nice' one which is like a comfy pair of slippers (without the pipe in my case)
Now, in the days of a lot of posters here owning proper speakers and carefully adjusted subs and so on, my comments above may well be from the seemingly Jurassic era from which I come, but believe me, the entire UK audio scene was altered in the 80's by subjectivist preferred products such as those above and I rue the times back then, when properly designed gear with a more 'straight down the line' performance was discouraged and ultimately not even imported here as it 'sounded thin/lean' and didn't magnify/compress reverb tails and so on!!!
I swear I don't mean to be combative here, but if you've never done or had the 'tune dem' explained to you it's difficult for me to explain. I'm way past evangelising on this concept now, except to return to the thread by suggesting that some cheap subs thud and rumble tunelessly, where other better ones can reproduce a low pitch synth-bass note more as a tone rather than a tuneless drone
if the above is still verbal diarrhoea to you, then best I crawl back under my stone as I can't really explain it better let alone demonstrate it, even to a fellow UK person.
I don't think there's any right to put that thing in the category of subwoofers..Don't know what a "musical" sub is... But there is some real science showing that some REL suck:
If you hum or even sing along with the music and songs (as I've been inclined to do all my life), you *may* find that some gear encourages this habit more than other gear. All subjective and depends on the person listening, so take it as face value. I once had to check out (for operation) two old amps, one a Pioneer 8100 and th eother a Uk made Ferrograph F307. The Pioneer for whatever reason gave a 2-D paper-flat kind of presentation which reminded me of many of their early to mid 70's amps (I have theories but absolutely no proof at all). The Ferrograph sounded absolutely delightful to me, instruments in the test music (a Pierre Moelen's Gong track I love) having some kind of 'shape' and 'perspective' to them. Sincere apologies for the arch off-topic subjectivism here and best we agree to disagree if my words still seem crap This album side is my definition of 'musical' as the melodies and harmonies easy to follow, even the drum-skin tuning here and thereI think perhaps my problem is with the term "musical"
I've listened to (what I suspect to be) inaccurate gear that sounds amazing (First time at uni - a tube "wireless" (radio) I was amazed by the warmth and richness of the sound.
It is the word musical though, to describe gear that really turns me off. As far as I can tell, people use it in place of "I really like the sound"
I don't think there's any right to put that thing in the category of subwoofers..
Bass modules, woofers....I get the ire about the fact it doesn't go down to 20Hz. But it's an additional speaker, driver in a box, meant to add to a system to extend the bass response (which it will if your stereo speakers don't go very low). What other category would it go in?
I don't know. What kind of waste sorting system do your have where you live?I get the ire about the fact it doesn't go down to 20Hz. But it's an additional speaker, driver in a box, meant to add to a system to extend the bass response (which it will if your stereo speakers don't go very low). What other category would it go in?
This is actually a very reasonable video from REL.rel musical , keep up ? its the frequencies that can't keep to where one maybe standing or seated
I don't think there's any right to put that thing in the category of subwoofers..
Welcome to ASR!First post and I'll probably regret signing up to post here, but I just finished going through this thread and noted the T/Zero discussion at the end here.
In its defense, this is my T/Zero MkIII in room with my Paragidm Mini Monitors v6s:
(Red with the T/Zero, Green without)
View attachment 337152
This is an untreated room with no room EQ so nodes are definitely at play here. That ~180Hz one is the only one that makes me think about going after it to correct though and it's surely due to having the rear ported bookshelves shoved into the corners for space reasons in this bedroom system.
Sorry the scale wasn't set to what you normally prefer. That node has nothing to do with the T/Zero though. I was sharing it mainly to demonstrate that in this particular use case, is re-enforcing bass to a noticeable degree far lower than its rating would suggest.Welcome to ASR!
Your vertical scale is 120 dB. can you post this graph with the standard 45-50 dB vertical scale? The scale is making +15 dB at 190 hz look almost flat.
I'll see about trying that later when I have some time.If you turn the crossover frequency up to 75-80 hz, does it fill that dip?
For a while, when my main sub was being repaired, I used a single KEF Kube 8b with an 8 inch driver, and with a similarly specified response down to 34 Hz. Actual measured in room response in a corner of the (large) room was more or less flat down to 25 Hz. That was with room eq, which is something I would recommend in each and every case. A corner location provides a lot of reinforcement, but often also excites quite serious room modes - so dsp room eq is well advised (as is the use of multiple subs - I now use three).First post and I'll probably regret signing up to post here, but I just finished going through this thread and noted the T/Zero discussion at the end here.
In its defense, this is my T/Zero MkIII in room with my Paragidm Mini Monitors v6s:
(Red with the T/Zero, Green without)
View attachment 337152
This is an untreated room with no room EQ so nodes are definitely at play here. That ~180Hz one is the only one that makes me think about going after it to correct though and it's surely due to having the rear ported bookshelves shoved into the corners for space reasons in this bedroom system.
The measurements were taken with REW and a umik with a calibration file. The reference volume was 74db at the "listening" position (or such as there is in this system). For a 9" cube, I am quite happy with what it is doing on the lower end here and, in my opinion, there is useful gained output down to ~25Hz here.
What's more, the sound and texture coming out this little driver in this use case is very pleasing to my ear. People have asked what "musical" means in terms of a sub. I agree it's subjective, but the attributes I hear from this little box certainly come to mind if I think on it. I am using the high level connection. I distictly remember noting it sounded better when I went to it from LFE - whatever the explanation for that is, it was certainly my experience as I wasn't really impressed on first setup with it on LFE as a drop in for the previous small sub.
It's surely a niche product and I'd say it's really intended for nearfield setups or small rooms where the room helps it on the low end more. On that front, I think its biggest fault is that it's priced close enough to the T/5x that paying the little bit more to step up is probably going to give you something with a little wider use case.
And yeah, I'd generally agree that REL is not competing on specs for price. That being said, I've have or have had REL T1s, Enegery EPS150, Kanto Sub8, SVS-SB1000s and a JL Fathom v12 in use in the various systems in the house and RELs have sounded good despite being outgunned in specs by several of the others. The T line is definitely not where you should be shopping for primary home theatre use either though.
Anyways, I thought a little first hand commentary might be of some use to others who might still be reading.
So bumping up the crossover a little to the 75-80 Hz range made a very minor shift in the 45 Hz peak towards the dip at 60 Hz but didn't really change much overall. I tried again a little higher and it shifted a little more but still not a whole lot.If you turn the crossover frequency up to 75-80 hz, does it fill that dip?
Nice! Does the blue sound like an improvement or too much bass?On a whim, I just cranked the crossover all the way upt 120 Hz to see how much shift I could get:
(Blue is the measurement at 120 Hz crossover)
I did a quick A/B and I did note an increase in bass with the crossover point cranked up.Nice! Does the blue sound like an improvement or too much bass?