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

[Chrispy]

That's kind of the gap I keep seeing in this kind of discussion.
We get into the whole "I only listen to classical music, no damn movies/hip-hop/name-your-nemesis ..."
And it does not take into account for instance the boundary gain you will get from corner/wall placement. For a small room, you may have powerful room modes giving you plenty of bass (although boomy).
Being able to translate your SPL requirements into wattage/driver size is not at all obvious. Outside LF you'd look at the speaker efficiency, distance from listening position, and you could do some math.

And to people who have felt good about their 100watt amp for years, reading that the entry level SVS has 325watt... it just requires a bit of a gear shift.
That's why I liked the blind test idea to settle that kind of debate.

Would be very curious for blind tests to settle the "musicality" thing, definitely.

With most subs you get no sensitivity information, so wattage means little really. A sealed sub trying to eq up the lower end will need more amp in general, tho. Have you ever checked out this site? https://data-bass.com/#/?_k=xje63z altho it's been dormant somewhat there's a lot of good info/measurements there. It's Josh Ricci's site, a former sub reviewer for Audioholics. Driver size alone give some idea how much air it can move, but tells you nothing about the strength of the motor.

 

[jsilvela]

With most subs you get no sensitivity information, so wattage means little really. A sealed sub trying to eq up the lower end will need more amp in general, tho. Have you ever checked out this site? https://data-bass.com/#/?_k=xje63z altho it's been dormant somewhat there's a lot of good info/measurements there. It's Josh Ricci's site, a former sub reviewer for Audioholics. Driver size alone give some idea how much air it can move, but tells you nothing about the strength of the motor.

Oh interesting, had not seen it.
Yes exactly, with subs being mostly active, it's hard to get a good feel of the various components.

 

[Chrispy]

Oh interesting, had not seen it.
Yes exactly, with subs being mostly active, it's hard to get a good feel of the various components.

If you diy you can pay attention to sensitivity/eq needs in choosing the amp/dsp....but a an amp-less sub (passive until you need to use it) these days is a bit unusual.

 

[bodhi]

Oh interesting, had not seen it.
Yes exactly, with subs being mostly active, it's hard to get a good feel of the various components.

Just look at the measurements. For example svs pb-1000 outputs 101dB@20Hz at 2m, outside room.

So, let's say it sits in a corner 3m from your listening position in a small/medium room. Should be about 100dB, a lot louder in midbass frequencies. Should be enough for most.

The REL t7x does not really have any output at 20Hz, it might give, a guess, 90dB in upper bass region. So it running out of steam even with music is a real possibility.

I'm not an expert and I haven't heard the REL but the numbers just look... Bad.

 

[Everett T]

I'll give REL a little credit since they've now introduced subs that do not have high level inputs and are true subwoofers, not the mid bass modules that they've always been. Overpriced still but has a passing grade below 20hz has excellent headroom through the mid bass sub region with low distortion. This is the first I've seen from them that qualifies as a sub below 4k. Link is the measurements page

REL Acoustics HT/1510 Predator II Sealed Subwoofer Review

The REL Acoustics HT/1510 Predator II is a 1,000 watt, 15” woofer, sealed bruiser. REL touts their subwoofers as being fast & musical. We evaluate that claim with measurements & associated trade offs.

www.audioholics.com

 

[jsilvela]

Just look at the measurements. For example svs pb-1000 outputs 101dB@20Hz at 2m, outside room.

So, let's say it sits in a corner 3m from your listening position in a small/medium room. Should be about 100dB, a lot louder in midbass frequencies. Should be enough for most.

The REL t7x does not really have any output at 20Hz, it might give, a guess, 90dB in upper bass region. So it running out of steam even with music is a real possibility.

I'm not an expert and I haven't heard the REL but the numbers just look... Bad.

yep, makes sense. Looking at numbers, it is clear that REL is comparatively overpriced, at least output-wise.
For low frequencies, you need to know so much more in order to make an educated choice.
To be honest, if you had told me a month ago that I needed 100dB at 20Hz, I'd have thought you were trying to ... sell me something.

I think that's a weakness with the marketing strategy of SVS et al. for newbies. They say "Jaw-dropping deep bass extension down to 20Hz and massive output" and "features a 325 watts RMS, 820+ watts peak power",
and for people who are not aware of the Fletcher-Munson curves and have been happy with an 80watt stereo amp, reading this likely gives them pause.

In contrast REL does not give numbers and promises to seamlessly integrate with your fabulous system. No extra electronics needed if you use the high-level connection. Very damn smart.

 

[bodhi]

I think that's a weakness with the marketing strategy of SVS et al. for newbies. They say "Jaw-dropping deep bass extension down to 20Hz and massive output" and "features a 325 watts RMS, 820+ watts peak power",
and for people who are not aware of the Fletcher-Munson curves and have been happy with an 80watt stereo amp, reading this likely gives them pause.

It's just that even the consideration using extension, SPL and your room size/listening distance is probably too complicated for the average reader of SVS advertisement. It might be hard to give any more specific instructions on sub choice without going technical. The best they can do is to ask for room size, listening material (music/movie) and how loud you want to listen. Then they can suggest a model that is certainly enough (a bit overkill maybe for some users). I don't think they would get any reclamations for suggesting a bit too powerful model.

 

[jsilvela]

probably too complicated for the average reader of SVS advertisement.

yaaa, the average reader of SVS advertisment is looking for a boom box.

 

[FeddyLost]

If you want to drop in a sub that integrates with your 2 channel system, you buy a REL. I heard that time and time again talking to other people at audio show. They may not be as dumb as we think. They can point to the low group delay and say "see? we don't sacrifice musicality for distortion. We have the fastest tightest bass"

Actually, if your target audience is conservative stereo-purists who want just non-intrusive augmentation of the bottom octave, most probably you'll end with something like REL. Because if you want to "just add a subwoofer", you don't need any latency at all. Even 1 msec is a 0,34 m.
It's not a AVR/DRC tuned system that can make time alignment.

Care to share?

REL Acoustics HT/1510 Predator II Sealed Subwoofer Review

The REL Acoustics HT/1510 Predator II is a 1,000 watt, 15” woofer, sealed bruiser. REL touts their subwoofers as being fast & musical. We evaluate that claim with measurements & associated trade offs.

www.audioholics.com

In contrast REL does not give numbers and promises to seamlessly integrate with your fabulous system. No extra electronics needed if you use the high-level connection. Very damn smart.

Exactly.
Hi-fi for most customers is a leisure time, not a geek hobby.
They wouldn't like to measure distances and run around their room with a measurement mic.
They just want to place small box near to one of their speakers, adjust volume and be happy.
So, there always will be some target audience for REL.

 

[bodhi]

So, there always will be some target audience for REL.

Yeah. I might take some of my complaints back.

When I first plugged the KF92 in with the default 50% gain without EQ it was plain horrible. In small/medium room with big room gain in lower bass it just drowned everything under boomy bass and cupboards resonating. The hifi dealer I bought the KEFs from said that they have been selling a lot of those to casual hobbyists because of cute look and big punch. I should have asked how many of those came back when the new owner just put them somewhere willy-nilly, plugged them in and the system went bonkers.

No such problems with at least with the T-series of REL subwoofers.

 

[Willem]

The more low frequency power you push into a room, and the smaller the room, the bigger the room mode problem. That is not a fault of the subwoofer. Did you measure the response, and address the peaks with dsp room eq? Two smaller subs may have been a better idea anyway.

 

[FrantzM]

Yeah. I might take some of my complaints back.

When I first plugged the KF92 in with the default 50% gain without EQ it was plain horrible. In small/medium room with big room gain in lower bass it just drowned everything under boomy bass and cupboards resonating. The hifi dealer I bought the KEFs from said that they have been selling a lot of those to casual hobbyists because of cute look and big punch. I should have asked how many of those came back when the new owner just put them somewhere willy-nilly, plugged them in and the system went bonkers.

No such problems with at least with the T-series of REL subwoofers.

Strangely, the lack of performance of the REL is likely the reason why you didn't have those issues, and, no proper integration of the, likely better, Kef subwoofer. Integration is key. You would get the top-of-the line REL and would likely have faced the same problems you had with the KF92. Subwoofer to mains integration is not easy, but when done well the system is transformed. You don't need to be a basshead to enjoy full frequency range reproduction even , yes, if you primarily listen to musical genres that are purportedly not bass heavy, such vocals or Western Classical Chamber music.

Peace.

 

[bodhi]

Subwoofer to mains integration is not easy, but when done well the system is transformed.

I guess this depends what you consider easy. As I said earlier, Audussey XT32 will mostly fix boomines with absolutely no customization. Before I upgraded my AVR I had AntiMode 8033 and it did about the same but even easier: plug in, press button, done.

Second sub and careful positioning improved things later on but compared to either of those easy solutions it was just icing on the cake.

 

[ehabheikal]

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

It means there are little elfs singing inside the sub. Tolkien elfs not santa elfs, just that you know.
Are we a little hard on people that use ears instead of lab grade equipment, and instead of dissing them we need to make a company that sells 1000$ cables and get something out of this

 

[jsilvela]

Yeah. I might take some of my complaints back.

When I first plugged the KF92 in with the default 50% gain without EQ it was plain horrible. In small/medium room with big room gain in lower bass it just drowned everything under boomy bass and cupboards resonating. The hifi dealer I bought the KEFs from said that they have been selling a lot of those to casual hobbyists because of cute look and big punch. I should have asked how many of those came back when the new owner just put them somewhere willy-nilly, plugged them in and the system went bonkers.

No such problems with at least with the T-series of REL subwoofers.

And calibration by ear, a la REL, tuning with your mains sounding, starting with gain low and increasing until you get a "match", may lead to setting the gain conservatively low. This was my case, only detected after I started using REW-MIK.

But back to your second paragraph, I wonder if some/many REL converts may have come that way by getting awful bass out of a "better-for-the-money" sub and letting AVR DSP's do the integration.
I've been playing a bit with Audissey MultiEQ, and so far it has given me very poor results.
Although the bass management/high-pass-filters on the AVR are a vast improvement over not having it.

 

[goat76]

And calibration by ear, a la REL, tuning with your mains sounding, starting with gain low and increasing until you get a "match", may lead to setting the gain conservatively low. This was my case, only detected after I started using REW-MIK.

The following text is from the manual of a REL subwoofer.

Hint: There may be a tendency to set the crossover point too high and the volume of the
Sub-Bass System too low when first learning how to integrate a REL with the system,
the fear being one of overwhelming the main speakers with bass. But in doing so, the
resulting set-up will be lacking in bass depth and dynamics. The proper crossover point
and volume setting will increase overall dynamics, allow for extended bass frequencies,
and improve soundstage properties. Note, volume must be adjusted in conjunction with
crossover changes. In general, when selecting a lower crossover point, more volume
may need to be applied.

 

[Chrispy]

It means there are little elfs singing inside the sub. Tolkien elfs not santa elfs, just that you know.
Are we a little hard on people that use ears instead of lab grade equipment, and instead of dissing them we need to make a company that sells 1000$ cables and get something out of this

It's not the ears so much but lack of ability to communicate well....the elfs is one of the better explanations I've seen, tho.

 

[jsilvela]

The following text is from the manual of a REL subwoofer.

Hint: There may be a tendency to set the crossover point too high and the volume of the
Sub-Bass System too low when first learning how to integrate a REL with the system,
the fear being one of overwhelming the main speakers with bass. But in doing so, the
resulting set-up will be lacking in bass depth and dynamics. The proper crossover point
and volume setting will increase overall dynamics, allow for extended bass frequencies,
and improve soundstage properties. Note, volume must be adjusted in conjunction with
crossover changes. In general, when selecting a lower crossover point, more volume
may need to be applied.

Yes, I've been fussing around quite a bit and did read that section.
And I thought I had gotten it and had set my sub well.

But those kinds of instructions work well only if you already know how to know when you're "there".
If you have a small room and a powerful mode in it, you may get overwhelming bass all too quickly.

EDIT: also, the fact that they had to add that section to the instructions kind of proves my point

 

[bodhi]

I've been playing a bit with Audissey MultiEQ, and so far it has given me very poor results.
Although the bass management/high-pass-filters on the AVR are a vast improvement over not having it.

You only have one sub? In that case if you have bad nulls then no EQ will ever fix it.

And, as said a few times, entry level MultiEQ is not good for subs.

 

[Willem]

Two subs really are the minimum. They do not need to be identical: as Archimago showed you can use a very big one for extension and a cheap and small one to smoothen the response.