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Get Connected
Specialized Solutions for Connecting
This time of year, we get a lot of write in questions about what more can be done to round out a REL system. Often, the answer is to consider the source; how are you connecting your REL up to the rest of your system? Before it even gets into our filter sets, our high current amplifiers, those amazingly fast, long throw drivers your REL needs to be connected properly. And not all connections are created equal. We offer two upmarket connectivity options one version offers Zero Compression Wireless and the other a special Ultra High Quality cable called Bassline Blue that is specially designed to get the most out of your REL’s High Level Connection.
Factoid: REL builds different “standard” High Level Speak-on cables; one for the Serie T/i and another, higher resolution for the Serie S and 212/SE. They look similar but we take care to match the speed and characteristics of the two series to optimize each. If we care this much about sound quality for our included cables, trust that we go all out when we produce our premium option.
If it’s a modern REL built in the past couple of years, we offer both wired and wireless solutions for everything but the G-1 MKII and Tzero.
Go Naked, Life Without Wire
Longbow still sets the standard for wireless sound quality 3 years after launch. Dedicated analog and digital power supplies, individual DACs for each channel to decode the sound at the subwoofer, dedicated ADC’s for each channel to encode the sound into the digital wireless stream, plus the ability to play both High Level and .1/LFE simultaneously to permit full REL Theater Reference performance. LongBow is a step up from our standard High Level Cable; offering improved ambience retrieval and the ability to separate out the effect of the concert hall and its echo/decay patterns into clearly discernable patterns separate and distinct from the music itself. This is extraordinary performance for any connector, much less a wireless connection. Getting rid of the usual tangle of wires draped across one’s floor is the icing on the cake. Every REL owner would love to own a LongBow if they own a Serie S, 212/SE or No.25.
Make it a Blue Christmas: Bassline Blue is our best sounding connector, the added lucidity and clarity it imparts to the entire spread of music is remarkable for its effect. This is no simple subwoofer cable. Many REL owners have described it as being almost as impactful as the first time they heard a REL in their system for the first time. If you own an older REL, you owe it to yourself to treat yourself and your system to this upgrade. You’ll fall in love with the music and expressiveness of a great system all over again.
My favorite moment with “Blue” was shortly after it was introduced, a sales engineer I know who works for a real left-brain amplifier maker (the guys who don’t believe cable makes a difference and it’s all about distortion and measurements) comes up to me –he’s a huge guy—and almost angrily confronts me and says “I don’t understand, what does this cable do?” As I started to explain he interrupts me to say, “No I get all that, but how does it do what it does? I’ve never heard such a huge difference from a cable in my LIFE!” The anger arose from the fact that his entire, carefully organized construct of the world had landed BANG, all around him when he actually heard what a cable—this cable—can do. It troubles him to this day, except that now we can laugh about it together.
For me, the clarity and illumination of Bassline Blue takes me back to my early days when I used to sneak in and record the San Francisco Ballet Symphony during dress rehearsals. During these, the working lights were turned on, on stage and in the orchestra pit—I imagine the better for musicians and conductor alike to be able see and communicate with each other. Frequent stops to discuss how the conductor envisioned a certain passage being played, various players and sections working through their final fingerings and voicings until, usually late in rehearsal there would be this magic moment where it all started to connect. When it started, everyone would feel it and the music took off and soared; everyone playing, one could sense, was barely breathing trying their hardest to make sure they weren’t the one to break this spell. The next night, it was all so perfectly manicured and sorted out that it never had that same sense of raw exhilaration—the likelihood of failure. I imagine it must have been something like what the Wright Brothers experienced on that first flight.
That’s what Bassline Blue is, the working lights, the communication possible between musician, conductor and audience. Then, as now, an audience comprised of just a few able to take in a wondrous performance.
Enjoy the music!
John Hunter, Owner & Design Director