Basic Setup & Tutorials

REL products are not traditional subwoofers, but true Sub-Bass Systems. A REL is designed to augment the performance of FULL RANGE speaker systems in order to provide, in certain cases, linear response below 15Hz. A REL will take advantage of the physical room acoustics to provide deep pressurization as no traditional subwoofer can. For best results, the REL should be placed in one of the corners behind the speakers. Remember, we are dealing with True LOW bass pressurization with RELs. Low bass pressurization below 40Hz is best derived from corner placement, where the most linear and efficient low bass can be produced because the subwoofer is able to take advantage of the tangential (corner to corner) axis which is typically the longest distance in a room. In most cases, when connecting two channel systems, you will be using the REL high level connection with the supplied cable. Please see our articles covering how to connect via High Level for details on how to connect. To begin the set-up process, choose a piece of music that has a repetitive bass line that is very low in frequency. We suggest track 4 from the soundtrack to Sneakers (Columbia CK 53146). This has a repetitive bass drum throughout that gives you plenty of time to move the woofer around. This track is perfect for the set-up process and should be played at the highest reasonable level expected for system playback. Working with a partner, one in the listening position and one at the REL manipulating position and controls is the most effective an efficient way to set up. If working alone, corner fine tuning and orientation can be effectively carried out from the location of the REL. Try to ignore all other music in the track, listen to the bass drum and its effect on the listening room. The basic steps to setup are phase orientation, corner fine tuning, orientation, and final settings. Phase Orientation With the REL in the corner the first step is to adjust for phase. Keep in mind that the right phase is whichever position (0 or 180) is the loudest for fullest. While playing music with true low bass, adjust the crossover to a point where the REL and the speaker are sure to share frequencies. This should be at 20 clicks from the minimum setting (12 o’clock) on the Crossover control. At this point turn the High/ Low Level control up so that both the REL and speaker are roughly equal in volume. This should be 15 to 18 clicks from minimum (10 to 11 o’clock) on the High/ Low Level pot. Now move the phase switch from 0 to 180 positions and listen for whichever position is loudest or fullest. That is, when the position is working in harmony with your main speakers, reinforcing bass not cancelling it. Sometimes is helps to concentrate on the leading impulse of the bass note, noticing if it is timed with the speaker. If the impulse lags the speaker’s response or if it sounds like the impulse is late, then the REL is out of phase. It will be best to determine correct phase when in the listening position, so this process will require walking back and forth to the REL if determining phase orientation alone.   Corner Fine Tuning The next step is to determine precisely how far from the corner the sub should be placed to achieve the most efficient output, as well as the lowest frequency extension. With the REL fully into the corner, and pointed to the opposite corner, continuing to play the music, slowly pull the REL from the corner on the diagonal, line to opposite corner, equidistant from both side and rear wall. At a certain point (sometimes a matter of only a few inches, in rare cases a foot or more) the REL will audibly play louder, go lower in frequency extension, and truly pressurize the room as the air around the REL will seem to be energized. Stop right there! This is the correct position from the corner for the REL.   Orientation Once the position from the corner has been established, the orientation of the woofer must be determined by rotating the REL from an imagined centre point at the rear of the REL. As the REL is rotated from one side to the other, listen for the greatest level of output. In effect, the REL should be left in the position where it is playing the loudest and lowest. If the REL is on carpet, at this point physically push the REL down into the carpet to lock it in place and provide the greatest coupling to the floor.   Final Settings Now move both the High/Low Level control and Crossover control to 10 o’clock settings (15 clicks from minimum). In most cases this is just about where the settings will end up. The Level control should be at a setting where you can hear the REL even with the main speakers playing. This is Generally 15 clicks +/- 3 clicks. The Crossover control should be set to where the sub bass is not overpowering or sloppy. It should be in time with the impulses of the main speakers so you can hear the depth and dynamics of the low frequencies. Again, this setting is generally 15 clicks +/- 3 clicks.  

The below text is a transcription of the video. When you get your new REL sub  home, if it's not an HT model, if it's a TX and S a reference, you're going to see that it has this beautiful cable with a speakon on one end. This plugs in we'll come back to the speakon in a minute, and then you'll see three wires. Now, basic coding of life is that hot colors are hot. That would be the red and the yellow and black is ground. Right. We deliver them exactly like this. I just took the bag off this two minutes ago. And you can see that we've actually pre-stripped this. Now this is not connected to an RCA. Just want to make very, very clear. This is a high level connection. All right. High level, meaning it's coming off the binding posts on the back of your power amplifier. The purpose of this whole thing is to give the REL the same input signal, meaning the entire chain of custody, right? Sources, cables all the way through preempt amp, all of that. That's what we need to feed through to the REL. So that it's dynamic and tonal signature is exactly what your speakers are being sent. We don't supply them with connectors. Why? Well, because five-way binding post vary so much. Some of them work brilliantly with bananas.  Other ones work really well with spades. We don't know what you've got. We don't know how much space you have, but what we do know is if we supply it with 22 gauge, really high quality copper, pre stripped. Now we start the stripping and I'm going to show you. There's a real pro tip here, everybody that gets these the first time he asked him off. Now you got two inches of copper that wants to fray and split and short,  be very careful. You do not want to have dead shorts happening. I'm going to show you and we may have to cut away here. Oh, this one's nice and smooth. You want to pull this back? About half the distance. So you can see this red piece is about two inches, about 50 millimeters long. We don't want to just pull that off. Want to leave that on. Why? Because what we're going to do is actually pull this over the connector and leave this on so that it remains an insulator. We're going to do this right now. I've just bent this into a little horseshoe, right? And I'm going to slip this over this connector right here. Just like this. We do this in the field all the time. Right, and then we snug this down really nice and tight. There we go. Now we have a perfect really tight connection here and it can't short to anything. So if I then go for example and put on, do the same exact thing with the yellow and connect this up to this hot connector over here and repeat the process, these can't short. This is just an insulator, works brilliantly. The other pro tip then is if your speaker cables are connected, for example spade, you would probably want to go with a banana for these. It's really important to understand you want to have a really good, solid, tight connection for your main speakers. If you're using spade, we recommend that when you go to connect the RELs up, you use a banana because that doesn't interfere with your primary connection. Conversely, this would be what I would do if the customer were using banana connectors for their speakers. That make sense? So go with this connection. When you've got  bananas that are your primary speaker to amplifier  connection and go with the inverse, go with bananas on this anytime that you're dealing with somebody who's already got spades that are mounted hard, really nicely clamped down tightly at the amplifier for example.