REL subwoofers and BeoLabs - integration?

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Millemissen Posted: Thu, Dec 8 2016 9:40 PM

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In a recent thread Steve (at Sounds Heavenly) mentioned the subwoofers from the company REL:

https://rel.net/

Steve mentioned, that these subs are very easy to integrate with BeoLab speakers.

I did not want to hijack that other thread, so here I go for a seperate thread.

Has anyone experience in setting these up (with BL's) and how are your impressions, if?

Maybe Steve himself could contribute to this - it seems, that he has tried something out.

It might be interesting for some of the Beoworlders.

How do you set these up with an audiosystem and a pair of BL's?

And how do you set these (maybe even more than one) up with a BV television in a multichannel setup?

MM

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BartS replied on Fri, Dec 9 2016 6:22 AM

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I had a REL Quake II in a multichannel set up with Beovision 7 + beolab 8000 (front) and Beolab 4000 (back). Although the sub is in the lower range of REL, the bass goes very low. The combination was good, but the sub - although nicely calibrated - had a tendency to referberate a bith with music with a lot of bass. This was probably caused by the downfiring woofer of the sub in combination with a wooden floor in our room. The set up can easily be done with the switches on the back of the sub. This should be no issue. Given the price (+/- EUR 400) the Quake did do a very, very good job.

Nowadays I have a Beovison Horizon 40 inch and switched the Quake for a Beolab 11. I can therefore can compare both subs in our living room. The bass of the Beolab 11 does referberate less and is in perfect harmony with the other beolabs. In better harmony than the Quake, and the Quake was not bad. Please note that the Beolab 11 is noticed in the sound menu of the Beovision Horizon and perhaps the filtering is therefore done better at the source. The Beolab 11 perhaps can not go as low as the Quake, but it is for music a perfect sub as it has a quick respons (in my opinion it is faster than the Quake) and it is subtle. It recently had our living room shaking on the explosion of the building in the opening sequence of Spectre. So, to my surprise, the Beolab 11 is even capable of giving extra dimensions to a movie. Although, I think that a REL can have more impact in a 5.1 set up as it is more present (rumbles, etc.)

My summary, the Beolab 11 is better in our B&O music set up. The REL however has the advantage in movies, although the Beolab 11 is certainly capable if necessary.

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Steve at Sounds Heavenly replied on Fri, Dec 9 2016 9:04 AM

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Hi Millemissen,

I was in discussion with REL recently and I met them at their UK base so that we could compare their subwoofers with B&O subwoofers, also to see how well they would work on B&O systems.  I found that their Habitat 1 (wall mounted) subwoofer gave in-room bass down to 30Hz at -3dB (equivalent to Beolab 2) and their T7/i subwoofer gave a response down to 20Hz at -3dB, which was far better than we got from either Beolab 2 or Beolab 19.  Both of their subwoofers worked well wirelessly via their Longbow transmitter, which connected easily and gave a good range with perfect sound quality.

As both of these subwoofers have separate low level inputs for music and LFE inputs for movies, they are good for TV and audio connections.  Each input is a single mono RCA jack, both inputs can be used at the same time and set up with different parameters, ie. you can connect to a Beovision and to a Beosound at the same time and arrange different bass performance for music or for movies.

Build quality of both products appeared to be good, with a nice paint finish and no rattling or unwanted noises even when playing at 100dB peak ("C" weighted measurement).  Bass performance was even and tight, without any noticeable distortion.  The linear frequency response of the REL subs that I tried meant that they could be easily matched to Beolab speakers, it is just a matter of setting the bass level and crossover dials.

For a connection from a newer B&O system with RJ45 outputs, please use this cable to connect to the REL subwoofer:-

http://soundsheavenly.com/bang-olufsen/65-rj45-powerlink-compatible-to-twin-phono-cable-output-from-new-bo-devices-to-amps-receivers-etc.html

For a connection from an older B&O system with DIN outputs, please use this cable instead:-

http://soundsheavenly.com/bang-olufsen/16--5pd-2rca-.html

For each cable, only one RCA plug needs to be connected to the subwoofer.  Any questions, please feel free to ask!

Kind regards, Steve.

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Millemissen replied on Fri, Dec 9 2016 10:02 AM

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Thanks to BartS and to Steve for their feedback on this.

I might at one time - when my last kid leaves home ;-) - set up an extra listening room with a BS Essence (2nd gen), a pair of BL6000 and a sub.

I might feel tempted to use the small and inexpensive TZero - instead of the BL11....

.....in order to use the saved money on my main system ;-)))

MM