Is REL being more 'musical' than SVS a myth, or is there some real science behind this?

[Mnyb]

subs are all about thier integration with your room and speakers at these low frequencies the room dominates .
You could have a bad sub with port noises and excessive distortion. But given any quality sub you are listening to your room until the sub hits some of its limits.

Imho successfully sub integration need some kind of room correction system .

Bass in room is kind of a mess more of it means more mess

Soon some senior member will jump in and suggest multiple subs for even better integration.
If you don’t buy over priced REL you can afford dual subs .

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

Then again wtf does "musical" mean in a sub or a piece of electronics? I hate that description as its pretty much useless....

Maybe it can improvise really well, like a double bass jazz player if you hook a piano up to it?

 

[Sal1950]

Like many other things in audio, subwoofers are very close to solved problems. Unlike full range speakers there's not a lot of issues to be worked out.
There's math to tell the designer much of what he needs to know about the size of the box and port design if that's his choice, in relation to the raw driver measurements. Weight can tell you a lot too, quality drivers are heavy and thick cabinet walls are also. No magic at all in the subs amp, clean power is all that's required.

 

[Hotwetrat]

Maybe it can improvise really well, like a double bass jazz player if you hook a piano up to it?

I once hooked myself up to a piano - results varied

 

[Pdxwayne]

This has all been a fantastic insight into the opinions of more experienced folk, I appreciate the replies.



This is unquestionably a bit worrying mind as due to several factors I went for the SVS SB1000 Pro for £500. One of those factors being I can try it for a couple of weeks and send it back if I am not happy.

May I ask how you eventually overcame this 'muddy' issue? What SUB, any sub etc ?

My current subs with room eq capabilities, the Paradigm Sub 15 and Paradigm Seismic 10 so far are the cleanest.

I still need to properly match them to my speakers using REW as I don't use AVR as preamp.

 

[Frank Dernie]

None of their subs, even their multi-thousand dollar flagship, have phase adjustment, all just polarity. This is very crucial to getting ideal integration in a system without bass management. I just can’t wrap my head around why such a feature is omitted. Their higher end models do have 2 PEQ adjustments, but thru a physical remote (their website literally says they won’t create an app as they don’t want to spend money in keeping it up to date).

Don’t know if it was the company owner, but I saw one video with someone from the company talking about shat makes their subs great, and he even stated that their enclosures are musical (rather than inert).

Back when REL was started in Wales by Richard E Lloyd over 30 years ago subwoofers were not a "thing" here in the UK and they were pretty well the only ones available.
He used super high quality cabinets and drivers and they were fairly expensive but nothing like now. The first one has 2 more models added iirc which were similarly styled but bigger. Stadium, Stentor and Studio I think.
They were designed to be connected to the speaker output of the amplifier and tuned by setting level and the frequency of the low pass filter. 30 years ago there was no such thing as room compensation and most people would advise against subs because of the difficulty of integrating them but REL got quite a good name and, maybe as a result, Richard Lloyd cashed in and sold the company. I have an old Studio made when he still owned the company it weighs about 200lb so has only been in 2 locations for the whole 20 odd years I have owned it and doesn't get used much.
I have just looked at their current offerings It would seem the US company which bought them (Harman group I thought, though they may have been sold again since) has used the early reputation in the marketing but hasn't made much in the way of technical advances on the integration possibilities over and above the 30 year old original.
Not surprisingly what was SOTA in sub integration in 1990 is not today and rather than being one of very few sub makers there are a vast number now.
Looking at their models for the first time in decades they do look very expensive for what is on offer

 

[Hotwetrat]

Back when REL was started in Wales by Richard E Lloyd over 30 years ago subwoofers were not a "thing" here in the UK and they were pretty well the only ones available.
He used super high quality cabinets and drivers and they were fairly expensive but nothing like now. The first one has 2 more models added iirc which were similarly styled but bigger. Stadium, Stentor and Studio I think.
They were designed to be connected to the speaker output of the amplifier and tuned by setting level and the frequency of the low pass filter. 30 years ago there was no such thing as room compensation and most people would advise against subs because of the difficulty of integrating them but REL got quite a good name and, maybe as a result, Richard Lloyd cashed in and sold the company. I have an old Studio made when he still owned the company it weighs about 200lb so has only been in 2 locations for the whole 20 odd years I have owned it and doesn't get used much.
I have just looked at their current offerings It would seem the US company which bought them (Harman group I thought, though they may have been sold again since) has used the early reputation in the marketing but hasn't made much in the way of technical advances on the integration possibilities over and above the 30 year old original.
Not surprisingly what was SOTA in sub integration in 1990 is not today and rather than being one of very few sub makers there are a vast number now.
Looking at their models for the first time in decades they do look very expensive for what is on offer

Great info. Well, I went with the SVS SB1000 Pro. Fingers crossed! I live in a flat so I am looking for audio fidelity NOT volume. TBH I literally never have even 'quite' loud volume when watching movies or listening to music.

 

[DSJR]

I'm going back many years now, but early REL's were fine for a music system albeit pricey. Then cheap home theatre became the thing and REL launched some cheaper models (in grey cases I remember). Comparing these on 'music' sources, the cheaper new models were all thump and fart basically, low synth and organ notes being just 'noise' as I remember it... Perfect for cheap 'explosions' though...

Towards the end of the retail side of my career, we had in some smaller M&K models and I do remember these being splendidly 'tuneful' as deep synth notes again, had a 'pitch' to them, at least subjectively.

I suspect things may be totally different in the US and with often different house construction too compared to our brick and plaster boxes. We're way behind as regards integrating subs as the extra boxes get in the way and I believe you really need two at least to 'drive' the room better.

Just my tuppence worth

 

[Sharpi31]

It’s been 17yrs since I sold REL subs - makes me feel old thinking about that!

In their defence the sealed alignment (some models), high level connections (integrated stereo amp friendly), phase / xover / amplitude controls did mean that their subs could integrate into a typical 2ch music system better than many HT focussed products. That plus some nice real wood veneer........

 

[Hotwetrat]

It’s been 17yrs since I sold REL subs - makes me feel old thinking about that!

In their defence the sealed alignment (some models), high level connections (integrated stereo amp friendly), phase / xover / amplitude controls did mean that their subs could integrate into a typical 2ch music system better than many HT focussed products. That plus some nice real wood veneer........

Thanks a lot guys - this is specifically for 2.0. My mains are nice but small so just extending the range a bit for a fuller sound reproduction

 

[Frank Dernie]

Thanks a lot guys - this is specifically for 2.0. My mains are nice but small so just extending the range a bit for a fuller sound reproduction

You mean going from 2.0 to 2.1 then

 

[Hotwetrat]

You mean going from 2.0 to 2.1 then

Well I suppose but isn't .1 LFE, and that's not really my case it's just sending full signal via SUB OUT to the sub, and I have to use sub crossover to integrate with my mains, as no high pass filter in place here. Just the mains tuned according to the manufacturers judgement and then my cutting off my sub at around their low cut off point.

Sometimes I make sense - NOT TODAY!

My point is I have absolutely no access to an LFE channel unless they mixed it in with the 2.0 mix

 

[Frank Dernie]

Well I suppose but isn't .1 LFE, and that's not really my case it's just sending full signal via SUB OUT to the sub, and I have to use sub crossover to integrate with my mains, as no high pass filter in place here. Just the mains tuned according to the manufacturers judgement and then my cutting off my sub at around their low cut off point.

Sometimes I make sense - NOT TODAY!

My point is I have absolutely no access to an LFE channel unless they mixed it in with the 2.0 mix

You could be right. I had always thought when one added a subwoofer (or 2) it went from2.0 to 2.1 to 2.2 but I could be wrong or a difference in standard from one place to another

 

[Pritaudio]

Let’s know how the svs pro sub app is like for fine tuning.

 

[dominikz]

This has all been a fantastic insight into the opinions of more experienced folk, I appreciate the replies.



This is unquestionably a bit worrying mind as due to several factors I went for the SVS SB1000 Pro for £500. One of those factors being I can try it for a couple of weeks and send it back if I am not happy.

May I ask how you eventually overcame this 'muddy' issue? What SUB, any sub etc ?

I just recently added a single SVS SB-1000 (older, non Pro version) to our mains (pair of Revel M16 bookshelf) and to my ears it works wonderfully. Clean bass down to the low 20s range
I'm using the sub-out from my stereo integrated amp to connect the sub, and using low-pass around 55-60Hz, without high passing the mains - this way I have 3 overlapping mid-bass sources at different points in space, smoothing the 40-80Hz in-room bass response somewhat vs mains only. Room EQ is of course critical to tame the peaks, this I do upstream.
Here's a single-point sweep in-room measurement at MLP of both speakers with and without sub, no room EQ, variable smoothing:

Notice how the ~65Hz dip got filled-in.

Anyway, I imagine the Pro version being quite a bit better still, given the built-in PEQ capabilities an remote control.

 

[Hotwetrat]

Let’s know how the svs pro sub app is like for fine tuning.

Should arrive Tuesday, I will definitely do that

 

[Hotwetrat]

I just recently added a single SVS SB-1000 (older, non Pro version) to our mains (pair of Revel M16 bookshelf) and to my ears it works wonderfully. Clean bass down to the low 20s range
I'm using the sub-out from my stereo integrated amp to connect the sub, and using low-pass around 55-60Hz, without high passing the mains - this way I have 3 overlapping mid-bass sources at different points in space, smoothing the 40-80Hz in-room bass response somewhat vs mains only. Room EQ is of course critical to tame the peaks, this I do upstream.
Here's a single-point sweep in-room measurement at MLP of both speakers with and without sub, no room EQ, variable smoothing:
View attachment 120760
Notice how the ~65Hz dip got filled-in.

Anyway, I imagine the Pro version being quite a bit better still, given the built-in PEQ capabilities an remote control.

This is great stuff and that's exactly how I am doing it. SUB OUT from Stereo AMP no high pass.

 

[ta240]

.......IMO, REL has a reputation for being "musical" simply because they put a lot of money into advertising themselves as such. I've seen nothing technical to justify that reputation. Would love to be proven wrong, though......

I put a lot of the current thinking about REL subs down to Mr McGowan and his youtube videos. I haven't watched his videos in quite some time but back when I did, he mentioned REL and how musical they were quite a bit.

I hadn't heard much of anything about REL prior to the PSAudio videos and after they ran I started seeing REL mentioned in a lot of forums. A few other youtube channels started 'reviewing' them too and heaped on the praise. Now REL is a common suggestion when someone asks about a sub online and especially if they say it is mainly for music.

 

[Matt0305]

At on point I owned an REL R328. It was a very nice looking sub, A+ for ascetics and build quality. Unfortunately it was basically a one note wonder. The frequency response peaked at 80 hz and dropped quickly in both directions. When I attempted to eq in a better response, distortion produced by the passive radiator was highly distracting. My current SVS PC2000 Pro on the other hand gives flat distortion free bass at the listening levels I prefer. I have never really noticed the group delay issue with any sub I have owned, but I can immediately hear distortion or poor frequency response.

 

[Chrispy]

You could be right. I had always thought when one added a subwoofer (or 2) it went from2.0 to 2.1 to 2.2 but I could be wrong or a difference in standard from one place to another

Depends if you're talking about an audio recording vs your speaker setup.....they're used both ways. There is of course no 2.1 source so if you say 2.1 it would indicate speaker setup