I have a REL here that I am testing at the moment - but my calibrated mic is bust! Waiting for the replacement to arrive. Will post measurements.
The crossover on the T5i ranges from 30-120Hz, a range of 90Hz, so the the mid-way would be 75Hz (30 + 90/2). I've assumed therefore that with the crossover dial at the 12 o'clock position, you're at 75Hz (but obviously only an assumption). My Q Acoustic Concept 20 bookshelvers have a 'low end' of 64Hz (+/-3dB), so I start with the REL crossover at 12 o'clock and dial back slightly from there until everything sounds balanced and 'of a piece'. My room is 11' x 17', REL tucked in the right hand corner of the 11', a couple of inches from each wall.
Have you read this : The Art (Not Science) of Tuning - REL Acoustics Fwiw I also started out the way you did it, calculating at how many hz each click was...after a few months I found out it was not right. It might be ok if you are listening in an anechoic space or somewhere out in the fields but not if you are listening in a room like most of us. How do you know where 'everything sounds balanced' ? It might sound balanced with some albums, it might not with others. Bass is all over the place with different recordings from different areas so making everything sound balanced is just not possible imho. That's why I don't listen for bass but listen for soundstage/air/voices when fine tuning my Rel. When you listen for this there is only one exact setting where the 'lift' happens...regardless of the recordings. This is also why Rel advises only 2 songs to tune their subs (apart from these I use a few others because when you know what it exactly does, you will recognize it with almost every recording).
From what I have read I understand you need 1 wireless arrow kit for each sub. Reviews state that some use 1 sub wired and the 2nd wireless and that this doesn't create any problems whatsoever with regards to lag or other.
use of two subs isnt a sure thing in my room for some reason. i had a single sub in the left corner and bought another for the right corner to try and correct the bass being shifted to yhe left. unfortunately the right sub was not able to correct the left side dominance and was basically useless. in that case a better single sub would be the best answer.
if your sub crossover is high i agree with you. with my previous single sub setup the crossover was low, e.g. 45 hz, and it was fed both left and right signals. the output was not localized, it filled the whole room at once and the higher frequency cues in the music still made left right pans easily to follow. it didnt sound like mid bass on the right, sub bass on the left, it sounded perfect.
That's a different question than the one I was replying to. I tweak sub settings depending on time of day, mood, individual recording characteristics, genre, level of personal intoxication etc. I'm right brain only, hence I don't post here very often!
Most of the time right brain also . But constant tweaking with a sub would drive me mad. Yes, I could do that for some recordings that for my taste have a bit too much bass, but once again, if I dial that gain setting on the Rel only 1 notch back, I can hear that the 'soundstage magic' is gone so that's a no go for me.
Knowing you I suppose you made sure that your right sub was in the best place to load and pressurize your room as the left one did ?! In the beginning I had a few songs, where a low kickdrum which was at a certain frequency, also seem to come from the left instead of the center where it should be. Initially I thought, yes that's why I should have bought 2 subs ! But I was pretty surprised that with better placement, moving the sub only an inch or so and trying a different toe in, this problem was completely solved. I can now play those songs with kickdrum coming in dead center. The only reason I am still thinking about getting a 2nd sub is that Rel claims this gives another dimension to the soundstage effect. Hearing what only 1 sub does for it, I tend to believe them.
yes, i pulled the left sub out of the corner as far as possible and pushed the right sub into the corner as far as possible. even doing that the left sub was much louder at the same gain, it was in a loading zone. i had to turn the right sub gain up quite a bit to equal the left. i could turn the right one off and you barely noticed a difference, the left was doing all the work. funny thing is that turning the left one off the bass still pulled to the left. all that said i would still want two subs just so it would look balanced.
anyone feel that the REL T7i or others in the T serie have a dominant note? A peak in the response? Thanks.
IME, IF one can place a sub into a corner, then that sub is going to load the room a lot better. Unfortunately in my dedicated audio room, that is not possible, but in my HT set up, this is exactly what I do with just one REL T5..and it really pays off with this set up.
REL T9is on the way. It will be interesting to see if they sound as billed......they did sound excellent during a demo.
Nice ! Interested to hear your impressions of them, especially with regards to the other subs you have owned.
After a few more weeks with my T/5is, thought I'd chime in with some more thoughts. The T/5i's continue to be a revelation. For instance, I'm a big fan of the album Stranger in the Alps by Pheobe Bridgers. The first track, Smoke Signals, has a sparse but deep and impactiful bass line mixed to the right channel. Before the RELs, this bass line was prominent in the mix, but just a series of low notes. With the RELs, these low notes are now a bass player on stage with the singer. And this is just the example I'm using because it happens to be the album I'm listening to as I write this, but I could say the same or similar for all the music I've played since I got the RELs, and I listen to a lot of music, and a lot of variety of music. The music isn't much lower now than what my Omegas could reproduce on their own (we're talking a whopping 3 extra points of frequency range) but the notes themselves have been given life and presence in ways I've only experienced on high-end systems at shows. Pretty friggin awesome.
