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Grey is the Space Between Darkness and Light
Why We Spent Months Looking for the Perfect Grey
We’re pleased to announce a new standard Grey finish that joins our Piano Black Lacquer and Gloss White Lacquers in our T/9X model. There’s no up-charge for Grey, and all versions use the same ultra-reliable and powerful, high-current amplifier with our High-Level Connection capability, allowing for a perfect blend of subwoofer and speakers. All finishes come with the same high-quality, long-stroke 10” active driver that delivers incredible performance year after year.
In North America, T/9x remains a best seller, and our hope is to make an obvious matching color choice available to young families (and those who feel young). Hey, if you like Grey, and I love it, your train just pulled into the station! Ours is just slightly to the warm side of neutral, is easy on the eyes, and blends beautifully with most interior Grey paint.
The new Grey finish doesn’t just offer aesthetic appeal—it’s the same T/9x that delivers the powerful, articulate bass you’ve come to expect from REL, where we believe that form should always follow function, and with T/9x, both are stunningly realized.
The Allure of Grey
Grey has been a thing for the past twenty years in design. Among thirty-somethings, its use in interior paint has become so ubiquitous that it’s referred to as “millennial Grey.” Porsche currently lists four standard availability variations, not including a couple of silvers that could pass for Grey.
What is it about Grey? I asked a few designer friends, and they all came up with pretty much the same take: “It possesses a calm, soothing quality,” said one. “It’s neutral; everything works with it.For the past fifteen years, it’s been a stand-in, in some ways, for white, which, if you don’t get both the color and the lighting just right, can be harsh,or dull. So, it was nice to have something that most people find both sophisticated and calming (there’s that word again) that isn’t white.”
Choosing a subwoofer isn’t just about enhancing your sound system; it’s about enhancing your living space. With the new Grey finish, T/9x becomes more than just a subwoofer—it’s a statement piece that seamlessly integrates with your home’s design, offering both visual and auditory delight. Imagine your favorite track played with the depth and clarity only REL can provide, all while T/9x blends effortlessly with your carefully curated interior. That’s the REL experience—where design meets devotion.
Crafting the Perfect Grey
A word about our Grey: if you haven’t worked professionally with color, building a subwoofer in anything other than high gloss black is not easy. Trust me. I spent over two months ball-hawking the samples at Benjamin Moore paint shops until I realized that the swatches were so small that they delivered almost zero useful information. Similarly, studying Grey cars proved to be of no use at all. Why not? Well, it turns out a 17-foot-long Grey car with complex curves catching the light in all sorts of fascinating ways bears virtually no useful comparison to a roughly one cubic foot subwoofer, even a good-looking one. Too much, not enough.
A Ford Bronco in Grey (with a minimum of three Greys currently offered) looks great as it idles along next to you, both stuck in the same creeping crawl that passes for rush hour in the Bay Area. Go ahead, send along the paint code to your paint shop, and join me as we both stare in horror. Grey slapped on a massive SUV with slab sides standing 6’5” tall looks, um, a lot like mud when applied to our medium-sized subwoofer.
So, we took a guess. We passed along a large paint sample I’d acquired that turned out to be close to Benjamin Moore’s best-selling Coventry Grey. Then we asked our factory to barely lighten the color. They did, and it worked. Our factory gets all the credit for lavishing all their usual care, double-spraying five coats (each coat is sprayed horizontally first, then vertically to ensure even coverage for each coat). Hand sanding after eight hours of drying time for each coat—a total of two-and-a-half days to finish a single cabinet. And then a final polishing and a few minutes of hand rubbing to bring out the luster in our paint. Damn, we’re good at paint and attending to the details that bring owners pride of ownership!
Our commitment to craftsmanship extends beyond what you see to how it feels and endures over time. Each Grey finish undergoes a meticulous five-coat process, with each layer cured and hand-sanded to ensure a flawless surface. This attention to detail not only makes the finish special but also allows it to complement T/9x’s acoustic properties, ensuring that your subwoofer sounds as good as it looks for years to come.
Final Thoughts
Enjoy it. We hope this makes homeowners’ jobs just a little easier when trying to figure out which of our T/9x finishes to place into your newly redone and beautifully painted Grey interior space. Chances are, you’ll be vastly relieved that we now offer a lovely Grey that seems to work with many shades of interior paint. But do yourself a favor—don’t bring along a swatch of paint from a paint store. That way lies madness.
We invite you to experience T/9x in its new Grey finish at your nearest REL dealer or explore more on our website. Whether you’re setting up a new system or adding to an existing one, we’re here to help you find the perfect match for your home and your sound.
In a world where design trends come and go, REL remains committed to timeless quality. The new Grey T/9x isn’t just about keeping up with what’s popular; it’s about understanding what our customers love and making it available to them with the same precision and care that defines everything we do.
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