The next generation of Reference subwoofers have arrived. Learn more about Reference No.36 & No.35 by visiting our Reference Education Page.
Video Transcript:
Hi, my name is John Hunter. I've been designing all of REL subwoofers for the last 21 years. And we're here to talk about REL's Reference, which is something both near and dear to my heart. And it means something much more than just the product itself.
To me, Reference is a guidepost. It's something that informs everything we do throughout the company. It lets us continue to expand. We are not static. It also is the stuff that pushes you the hardest. It's more daunting because in a sense there are no limits. When you take those limits and boundaries away, you've got to be really good.
So Reference for me is a way to continue evolving REL's language, the internal language, who we are, what do we do, what do our customers get when they buy REL. And we have a very different vision of sub bass than most subwoofer companies. We listen to life from DC to light. We take it all in at all frequencies.If you can replicate the three-dimensional aural reality that is life, then you're operating in a totally different plane than somebody who's just got a subwoofer thumping at you.
When we talk about adding a REL, everything about what your speakers and your system are capable of doing, everything about it is wildly enhanced.
Subwoofers have to do a number of things. They have to play very loud. Why? Because we're being asked to do things, for example, in movie sound that are intended by the director and the sound designer to be something that is beyond normal. But on the other hand, to me, the hardest things to do with subwoofers are things at the other end of the scale.
Clarity, precision, delicacy, intonation, all of these things matter so much. It's incredibly important that the entirety of the musical experience be improved when you put a REL in.
There are certain things that appear to be at polar opposites. When you get it right, both of them are better. So, for example, loudness. Great. We're now pushing almost 115 dB out of a 36. Great. But what happens at the opposite end? Do you get more resolution? Do you sink into black further? Or are you getting more output but at the expense of subtlety and all that delicate little filigree at the very bottom just before it fades to nothing. All of those kinds of things, those seeming opposites, we have to do both better or we're doing something wrong.
One of the things that really defines who we are is we understand that what we're doing is unlocking the room. When you hear a super high-rise speaker, there's clarity, there's resolution, there is dynamic contrast, there are all these different factors, all of which will be further realized by putting the appropriate REL, pair of RELs minimum, into that level of system.
We're never there to interfere with or alter the way a system sounds other than to restore the foundational frequencies and the harmonic rise that goes all the way up to the air on the top of a hall. You should absolutely be able to feel the impact of a subwoofer. You should be able to hear and experience a completely different kind of dynamic in the room.
The room should come alive with a subwoofer. So you can absolutely aurally experience it. What it ought not to be is crossed over so high that you get boom, that you get intrusion and that that boom and intrusion actually negatively affects things like the mid-range or the highs.
You should only hear the subwoofer when you remove it and then the system should sound utterly and completely broken.
That's a great subwoofer. It's the incredible awesome machine. It's the thing that you put into a system you think is done and utterly transforms your understanding of what that system could have done.
I think our greatest strength over the last 20 plus years has been absolutely zero complacency. The only thing that matters is the customer and their reaction to it. We take what we do in Reference very seriously because ultimately these are some of the most careful listeners. People with multi hundred thousand dollar systems, people with multi-million dollar systems, and we're being included in those and we take that very seriously.
Our customers want us to never stop evolving and getting better and that's our commitment back to them. We're never satisfied. We're trying to always get to some mythical ultimate and yet, you know, it's like the universe, it's constantly expanding, right?
Our understanding of what something as simple as a high-end audio system can do continues to evolve and expand. It just keeps us constantly growing and in a mode of asking and chasing those answers.
That's the joy of it.
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