Nice! My T/5i's are positioned almost identically to yours relative to mains and rear wall. Seems to work well.
VERY NICE! Must say, when I read your first impression of them, I was afraid you would not like them and that I was just imagining all the good stuff I was hearing in my room with the T7i. I do agree wholeheartedly with all your mythbusting points! Imho those myths are put out there by people who only looked at the numbers but never actually heard one or one that was properly integrated. One question, I notice you set them all by measurements, but have you noticed/experienced the 'lift in soundstage' they provide, the 'soundstage magic' ? If I may make one suggestion, try toeing them in (in different degrees) towards your listening position and listen if and how this influences the soundstage/details/clarity (instruments and especially voices).... I only have one, so it's in a corner as it just needs to be there to load/pressurize the room. I started with toe in, where they are facing the opposite corner of the room (which REL suggests as a starting point), but later I found out things improved greatly when I turned them more towards my listening position. Turning them half an inch in or out makes all the difference now! I have demonstrated this to a lot of people coming over and they all noticed the difference.
REL or nothing else for me as you say, they are fast. they really know how to build a fast sub bass driver. may also have to do with the quality of the amps, but yeah, REL is the only sub i ever recommend or consider im curious about the measurements of your sub set at the lowest xo... are you sure the rel and the shl5 are not overlapping badly? care to share so measurements of the sub only playing, then the shl5 only and how they sum together? enjoy!
ill get there. right now my computer that has functioning RTA software has an unstable hard drive and my newer computer has no in-out loop to calibrate the sound card ! i'm using a phone app and cannot capture the screen.
I have a new REL in situ here and it is very impressive (I have been a persistent REL critic in the past). Good price and good aftercare. It measures very well in room. Flat to about 23Hz, with low distortion.
Have you tried angling the dubs toward the listening position? In my setup that worked better than having them point forward or away from the listening position.
Looks awesome! So how did you connect the pair to the amp? Did you twist the red and yellow together for the +ve? And where did you connect the black wire to? Some say you can connect to the phono ground. And are the XO and gain settings for both subs exactly the same?
Thanks! I twisted the red / yellow together and connected to the (+) terminals, black to speaker (-) terminals, left and right corresponding for each. Luckily i had some spade lug terminals on hand, the bare wire would not connect to the terminals on my amp. Crossover settings are identical, gain is higher on the right sub because the left is more corner loaded.
Very nice Tony! Sublime looking and I'm absolutely positive, it's sounding just as good, too. I ran 2 REL T5 subs in the past with Kef LS50s and thought they were great.... I didn't have anything to compare them to but I was very happy with them. Glad you are enjoying them.
i take back what i wrote about not so easy to integrate. basically 5 days in and the t9is are basically integrated. i fiddled with the jl for years and the martin logans for weeks. listening just now the bass was a little strong. is this from the subs or the speakers? off went the subs, oh yeah, they are doing something, that is for sure. subs back on, down one click on each, ahhhh, perfect! i am updating my profile with these babies !
Nice work. Any specific details to add re the T9i vs your old JL? I have a JL D108 with a DSPeaker Anti-Mode that’s damn good for the very low used price I paid. And I have no flexibility re positioning due to my room shape, so the variable phase control is a (seemingly) crucial feature. Very curious how you‘d compare/contrast the single driver/Class D/variable phase of the JL against the dual driver/Class AB/simple phase control of the REL. Thanks for your thoughtful reviews.
Woohoo! The twins came in. Wow. Sweet looking subs with a super nice glossy finishing. Built solid too! Went and set it up as quickly as possible, placed them within the "decent looking" zone (not upsetting the home boss) and started playing some bassy tracks. Yep, like @avanti1960 has said in his initial feedback, it sounded like crap. I think part of the reason why it's sounding so bad and unnatural to me is because there is a lot of expectation from these after hearing how good they are and expect to play amazing right away (and this is my first time using a sub for music, so I don't know what to expect). The other problem is that I'm consciously wanting to hear a big difference from the sub, so naturally I keep cranking up the gain higher just to hear what I paid for (not exactly small change for me), leading to bloated bass. And lastly, I'm sure my brain/ears has subconsciously triggered on the hyper-analytical switch for the bass frequencies and so I'm not really "listening", LOL. Anyway, I'm sure as with all speakers, it needs proper placement and needs time to break in. More importantly is to let me come to my senses with having a sub for music (I mean, paying that much and you're almost not supposed to really "hear" them? That's a tough one for now. LOL).
If you are not using measurements like @avanti1960 , and are setting them up by 'ear' and listening, I would suggest you to read all the articles on the REL site regarding set up! Follow these as close as possible, and you will be able to dial them in perfectly. It will take some time as you need to learn what to listen for but you will get there. Start with articles about placement (very important) and then get the 2 tunes/songs they recommend for setting the xover and gain volume (and dialing in the placement as perfect as you can). Use only those 2 songs and hear what the settings are doing for them. Bass is all over the place with certain recordings, so just using any song you know won't work ime as you will be changing settings all the time without knowing what is actually right. You use the 'sneakers' track (cosmo, old friend) for placement (and phase setting) and you use the 'horse' song by Jennifer Warnes for dialing in xover and gain.
no problem. i auditioned the d108 and it sounded so good i bought the d110. very balanced and musical. the problem was that i ultimately could not achieve a perfect tune even with measured, careful adjustment of the phase control. it was very good but not enough of the time. on too many recordings the bass did interfere with the midrange. if i carefully backed off on the crossover or level to fix it, i then could not hear the contribution of sub bass well enough and the excitement was lost. im guessing that the cabinet was not thick enough or as well braced as it shoud have been. the RELs seem sturdier and heavier by comparison and simply do not color the midrange yet do create exciting bass. also no issues with integration without a phase dial. what people say about them is true.
Thanks for the reply. Re. measurements: are you using REW or another tool? What did the initial measurements show that your tuning then addressed? Re. placement: did you select subwoofer location based on measurements? Aesthetics? Or did you do what I did, which was place the subwoofer in the one place it would work and then measure and adjust settings accordingly?
avanti, didnt you do a whole thread about how sub without variable phase cannot be well implemented and integrated? guess its time to update that thread of yours REL, like you know, is not about specs. its about the quality of the driver/cabinet/amp all of excellent quality workin in harmony I cant even imagin how their G series must be
Lots of people here on this forum claim that you should never buy a sub without a variable phase dial. But we know better !
REW can work well, I used to use True RTA but I have a computer dilemma so I use the Spectrum app for IOS. Not great but gets the job done. I measured the response with full bandwidth pink noise. Took a measurement at listening position speakers only to see where the bass drops. Added right sub at higher volume to set the crossover. Added left sub, did the same. Set phase to 0 by ear. Level adjusted right sub only for flat response Level adjusted left sub for flat response added both and adjusted each sub equal amount for flat response. My subs have a limited range of placement options. The key is to get them at least 8" from the wall- 12" if needed. Too close to wall = peaks in response.
Nice, thanks a million for taking the time. Re. the app, do you mean "Audio Spectrum Analyzer dB RTA?"
