Principles of Sound

“Wait~~, ~~ what just happened? That was incredible. I don’t understand.”Words tumbled out of her like water flowing over smooth stones in a stream. A friend of my wife’s who loves music had stopped by, and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to show her what a great-sounding, modest system with a REL could do for her musical enjoyment. I first played a cover of Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Kina Grannis on the system without the REL connected. It sounded lovely; well-balanced,  natural and transparent, with excellent imaging. She was deeply impressed, as are most people who first hear what a high-end system can do. Then I explained that I was going to insert a REL subwoofer, after first asking if she knew what a subwoofer was. “It’s that thing that makes the bass go boom, right?” “S..o..r..t of…” I answered through mentally gritted teeth.“Listen for yourself and tell me what you hear.” I played it again same cut, same volume all the way to the end. That’s when she blurted out the question that started this whole story. What just happened is that bass, per se, doesn’t exist anywhere in this recording. The artist is a female singer playing an acoustic guitar. Later in the song, a violin joins in to add texture. No bass.  So, what was she reacting to? If you own a REL, you know this sensation that moment when you first heard music played in your living room (or a dealer’s  demo room) that transports you into the performance. You must have experienced it on hearing your first demonstration of a REL. Suddenly, music acquires texture, gradations of dynamics hitherto missed, intimacy, and takes on the acoustic of the space in which it was recorded. In her case,  it was a small, intimate studio with a slight bit of reverb. Not that she could hear it or describe it. She didn’t need to. I recognized it. I had my moment 31 years ago. I had struggled to sort out how to connect the first sample of a REL in the U.S. The first night, it didn’t do much to impress. By the next night, it was filling the entire house we were renting with a new kind of sound, one that felt like I’d always wanted but didn’t know  how to describe until I heard it. Deep, not into the bass, though that was certainly there when called upon. Deep into the music. That second night, my roommate and I stayed up till 3 a.m., discovering anew my vinyl collection. When the night started, like many audiophiles, I had maybe 15 records I loved the sound and the performances enough that I played them frequently. Too frequently. By the end of that night, I had 43, and the only reason it wasn’t more was because I fell asleep. Once heard, you never forget your REL. You keep exploring music and movies. We (SUMIKO, where I first worked, then later acquired with my longtime partner Donald Brody) became REL’s distributor. A couple of years later, I realized that we could add a separate, dedicated Low Frequency Effects input per Dolby’s specification for perfect movie sound able to blend with the High-Level Input for which REL has always been known. I shared my idea with Richard Lord and recall explaining that the two circuits could be joined together in a way like how DJs blend sound from two turntables, and he immediately caught the excitement. These days, most RELs feature this combination of High Level + LFE, delivering that same sense of being transported into one’s favorite films. It brings movies to life in the same way that the High Level-enabled REL does for music. Voices take on the correct resonance. Spaces shown on film make sense. Walking through a tight passageway feels almost claustrophobic. Step into a hard-tiled entry and the echo of high heels defines the space the hard, staccato rhythm of Jimmy Choos on travertine marble. This ability to help immerse oneself in another world for two hours and fourteen minutes becomes so easy to fall into, one wonders how or why others don’t deliver this experience. Why does Tom Cruise’s voice have that assured cockiness writ large on a REL, while Glenn Powell’s voice sounds merely cocky? There’s a world of difference between them, and REL helps break down the distance between those personas. Listen to a standard theater in a friend’s room and one almost feels sorry for them, for how pinched and tight everything sounds throughout most of the movie. Going home to your REL-enhanced system, no one will blame you if you slip the same movie on again just to make sure you weren’t imagining the difference. But no—yours envelopes you in this natural warmth. The timbre of voices is easy. Natural. Cruise delivers cockiness. Powell  sounds cocky, but with something you hadn’t noticed on your friend’s system, humor, and even a grudging admiration for Cruise’s confidence. You’re in the same movie but enjoying an entirely different experience. Want the ultimate REL movie experience? Think of adding an HT/1510 or an HT/1205MKII to a theater built around our T/x or Serie S models for devastating Low Frequency Effects. It’s one of the crowning glories of a big theater whip-fast, ultra-low, ultra-loud, very deep bass delivered with explosive suddenness. Think of it as the cherry on top of the whipped cream on top of your favorite ice cream. Hell, life’s short—put one up front and a bigger one in the rear. Whether your jam is music or movies, or both, our intent is always to deliver the natural experience of sound appropriate to the performance and the venue. Bass is a vehicle—it provides the structural  underpinning that allows one’s brain to tune in, turn on, and drop out. Drop out of those last vestiges of resistance to believing that what you’re hearing or seeing isn’t quite real. Relax into your special place. That’s the Joy of REL. Remember, everything goes better with a REL. Or two. Or six.

The below text is a transcription of the video. For many years, audiophiles have known that cables matter. They are demonstrably different sounding. Some of them may charge too much for what they do, but fundamentally, cables are the arteries through which the music or movies flow. It's not an accident that people are willing to spend, in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars on their cables for a high end two channel system. Similarly, in theatre, it's incredibly important to be able to pass all the dynamics, all the transient bursts, everything that happens on a .1 channel through in a high quality cable. There are good cables out there, good .1 cables. Most of them are very, very expensive. I've auditioned $1,500 cables. I've auditioned £3000 cables, and they're fine, but they're enormously expensive. And it sort of begets the whole purpose of having a limelight HT and many of the other, frankly, good home theatre subwoofers. Home theatre subwoofers do not need to be necessarily wildly expensive to deliver the goods. It is a matter of speed, horsepower, and explosiveness. And you can do those things for fairly reasonable prices. So to us, it seemed really important that we be able to deliver something that was audibly superior and yet keep costs within control. We've got two different models that would be coming out with later this year, the first of which is going to be affordable by virtually any standard. And I'm really proud of the quality of execution of these. They'll be available in black or white because so many people either have white baseboards that they need to be able to run cable. In some cases a very long distance. It could be 30, 40 feet. If you have a subwoofer in the front, your electronics is back, for example, tucked into a wall or into a rack in a closet. They are CL3 rated, which means that they can also pass legally through walls. And the sound quality of these and the build quality is exceptional. They are very simple to look at. They are very well balanced, top to bottom. This is a funny admission, but about two years ago, I was in England doing some training for our reps over there. This is the launch of the HT/1510. And so we had one and we had it hooked up with a very nice high quality aftermarket cable. And it was sounding great. About halfway through the training, one of the other fellows arrived with our second one so that we could have more than one REL in the theater. We went to hook it up and realized, oh my gosh, we don't have the matching interconnect cable. And someone said, who cares? It's .1. It'll be fine. Okay, so let's just find something we needed about five-meter length, 15 feet or so. And eventually somebody sheepishly came up from the warehouse. They had a box with the freebie throwaway cables that come with things like Sony receivers, you know, the cheapest, thinnest little injection molded nothings. And I sighed and took out one of these pre-packed things, you know, where you have to unwrap the cellophane. It's wrapped around about eight times and pulled this little thing out. It was like, oh my goodness. Seriously. Alright. But again, hey, it's just .1 LFE. How hard can it be? It literally sounded broken. It was crazy how far down and level it was. And I thought, no, no, no, no, no. This is wire. Fundamentally, he's right. You know, the guy was, who cares? It's just .1 LFE. It wasn't true. Eventually one of our people ran out to the car where they remembered that they had good cable, brought them in, and we actually needed to, he had two. We actually had to put a junction in between to make it fit long enough. And even with that junction and all the losses, it was immediately obvious that there was a huge difference. We could finally do our demo for ourselves. It got me thinking when I got back. I actually brought some back. I gave some to a friend of mine at the time who worked for Audio Quest because I told him a story. He said, can you bring some of these cables home for me? And he proceeded to go around the country selling, you know, millions of dollar’s worth of audio quest 'cause he is a brilliant salesperson and he was able to overcome that initial. Do wires make any difference that in that sort of initial resistance that we all still have, right? Seriously, it's a wire. Come on. I'll tell you this. I developed a very quick, very simple test for how to assess the efficacy of a .1 cable. I've never seen anybody else do it. We're going to be using this going forward as we develop just .1s. We're not getting into the cable game. We are developing cables that are exceptional for home theatre and make sense for employment with our HTs. These cables are very well balanced and they're wickedly dynamic and they really bring out as usual the emotions in the scene. Those are our goals going in. It has not been quick. It has not been particularly easy to get these developed. We've been at it for well over a year. We'll very shortly be bringing these out. We're really proud of these and we think they do some things that will have people talking.

<>   The below text is a transcription of the video. Audio files don't have special genetics. They don't have golden ears. They may well, however, have spent a lot longer than you did on developing their ability to hear into music. When somebody allegedly has great ears, we don't mean that they can somehow hear up to, you know, 30,000 kilohertz or something. Listening is listening acuity. It's a learned task. Like anything we do in life, the more you do it and the more you learn about a subject, the better you get at it. You know baseball and golf are probably the sports that respond most to technique. There are like 5,000 different touch points on technique that if you aspire to being a great baseball player or a great golfer, you have to get there. You get to a certain point and somebody goes, Hey, when you're trying to make that play or make that shot, you have to do this and go, oh gosh, and you practice it four or 500 times until you start getting comfortable with that. It's like that with listening. So everybody is an audio file. I want to be right upfront about it. There is nobody that cannot hear this stuff. There is no magic bean that you have to eat in order to get blessed with great ears. It's not that. So, what's a good tip for doing it? One of the things that's hardest for people is if they don't know how to listen to music, I think the easiest thing for people to do this has nothing to do with the sub base. You can have no real in the system at all. Start trying to listen to the different pieces. If you like rock or pop, whatever, just try and find the baseline. My son's been doing this. He's home from college and he's been listening to the baseline on great, you know, Motown songs and things and at first he couldn't hear it at all and I started, I would hum it for him. And suddenly, he was going, oh, okay. And now he can, we're in the car, we're driving along. Now he's picking out the baseline. Why the baseline? Often, it's the thing that on classic songs, made the song, there's usually some twist. It is so easy to pick out after just a few minutes and it gives you insight on a song. And once you start realizing, you can hear different parts, different voices, you can hear backup singers, it starts to really deepen your appreciation of the music versus just following along with the melody. Alright, try and go a little bit deeper. When you go into a stereo store, a few tips. If the speakers, and this is true of any speaker above about $400 or $500 a pair, if they're set up at like a meter and a half, four or five feet apart that's not a credible setup. Even a relatively small five and a quarter inch two-way is going to wind up being at least seven feet apart in order for the speakers to open up and not condense down on themselves. If you are in there and you're experiencing that they're set up very close together, pointed straight ahead, semi-close to the wall, and everything just sounds wooly. Get much closer to them. And I mean like within three to four feet of them, and you'll hear everything start to open up. You may have to get down your hands and knees and crawl up to it, but go up there and hear them open up. And for the first time, you'll actually start hearing what stereo is. Stereo is not two speakers squirting sound into each ear canal. It's the way that all of those that combine into a three-dimensional sound field. And so getting yourself closer will teach you a huge amount about what the speakers can do versus inep setup. Anyway, you guys can all do it. This is fun stuff. This is not difficult to hear. Just experiment, right? You want to have at a minimum an equilateral triangle. In most cases, most good modern speakers, the drivers we have these days are incredible. You probably want to be a little bit inside that. It's more like a 72, 75 degree angle instead of a 60 degree. It will open things up, you'll hear further into the sound stage. You'll start to understand that term of the sound stage and it just makes the whole thing open up and be really involving. It draws you into the experience. You can absolutely do this. This is not something that only the wealthy can have. In fact, I would say it's easier to get great sound out of a $2,000 to $5,000 system than it is to get great sound out of a $200,000 to $500,000 system here all the time. It shows that's hard to do, but a simple little system, even a little receiver, Yamaha makes some great receivers. Denon makes some great receivers, alright? Pair of inexpensive speakers start there. You know, once you get that mastered, add the matching sub. Once you get that mastered, get a better source. Everything you do to make the front end of it better will go all the way through your system and make the whole system better. So take your time. It's a lot of fun. And try and find somebody who does know what they're doing to coach you and mentor you. You know, oftentimes they're really good guys at stores that are older that've done this for 20-30 years, and they're usually really happy.     Thank you for reading our latest blog. We strive to provide content that’s both entertaining and educational. If you have questions or suggestions for future articles, reach out to us at contactus@rel.net. We value your input and will do our best to respond within a few days. With over 160 years of combined experience, we’re committed to making your audio experience exceptional. If you found value in this piece, please share it with friends who might benefit.

Home has a rhythm. You feel it when you walk through the front door. The hum of life that comes from light, conversation, and the quiet presence of sound. Some rooms invite energy, others whisper calm. Together, they form the living soundtrack of your life. At REL, we’ve always believed that great sound is more than what you hear, it's what you feel. The right system doesn’t just fill a space; it brings it to life. Each room, after all, deserves its own story. The Living Room: The Heartbeat of the Home This is where most stories begin. The living room is where people gather, where a single record can turn an evening into a memory. Sound here should be full-bodied and expressive alive but not overwhelming. A carefully tuned subwoofer doesn’t just add depth; it adds warmth. It turns the air into an invisible part of the furniture, wrapping the room in richness. Whether it’s jazz, film, or vinyl nostalgia, your living room should always sound as alive as it feels. REL Tip: For stereo systems, try a pair of subwoofers rather than one. Stereo pairs are the fastest way to make your living room sound three-dimensionally wider, taller, and infinitely more engaging. The Kitchen: The Pulse of Everyday Life It’s the space where life happens between moments. The morning coffee ritual, a quick meal with friends, the laughter that comes from nowhere. Kitchens deserve music too, even if it plays softly in the background.  In many modern homes, kitchens are already equipped with in-ceiling or in-wall speakers, providing convenience and clean aesthetics, but often missing the weight and dimensionality that make music feel real.  Kitchens are also increasingly part of open floor plans, flowing into dining and living areas. A properly placed subwoofer doesn’t just enhance the kitchen; it helps fill the entire space with cohesive, balanced sound, supporting speakers across the room and maintaining musical continuity as you move through the home.  REL Tip: Wireless connectivity allows easy integration with in-ceiling and in-wall speakers, delivering fuller, more immersive sound without adding visual clutter. Its proof that great music doesn’t need a dedicated room to make an impact. The Bedroom: Quiet Confidence Silence is beautiful but it doesn’t have to mean absence.In the bedroom, sound should be soft, enveloping, and effortless—a slow breath rather than a statement. A good subwoofer disappears here, leaving behind only calm presence. At the end of the day, sound has a way of restoring balance. Whether it’s a late-night playlist or the closing score of a favorite film, your bedroom deserves a soundtrack that settles the mind. REL Tip: Subwoofers perform best when integrated gently. Reduce crossover points and volume until the effect feels more emotional than audible.  The Home Theater: Emotion Amplified Some rooms exist to remind us of what’s possible. A dedicated home theater or media space is where sound becomes experienced.  Movies, concerts, even sports all depend on low frequencies to create realism. It’s not the explosion or the roar that makes it real, it's the resonance underneath that convinces you it’s happening. That’s what REL was born to deliver.  REL Tip: REL 3D home theater setup will elevate your system & transform it entirely. REL 3D provides depth, speed, and scale that rivals the world’s best cinemas. Every Room Has a Voice Great homes are like great albums they’re built track by track, each one distinct but connected. The way light moves through a hallway, the scent of something cooking, the texture of quiet in the evening—all of it becomes part of your home’s composition. Sound ties it all together. It gives your home its rhythm, its weight, its sense of life. Because when sound is done right, you don’t just hear it, you live in it.

Once you've heard of REL properly dialed in, it's really hard to go back ever again. I speak from personal knowledge. I've been around REL. Of course, I've been designing since 2005, but I had the privilege of working with Richard himself back in the day. And we started in 1994, and it was impactful, enough that I don't know that I've owned a system since 1994 that didn't have a minimum of two RELs in it. It just imprinted on me. And for me, you know, I played lead guitar when I was a musician. I was not a bass player. I didn't care for conventional subwoofers. Shock, they sound terrible, many of them. What I care about is the ability to produce a lifelike three-dimensional hologram that is a mirror of real life. When you hear real musicians on a real stage playing real instruments in a real defined space, it's addictive. And I've never found anything that gives that impact, that dramatic take you there, and lets you feel the energy. You know, when you play live music on stage, there's a vibe that doesn't exist anywhere else on earth. And there is something about what RELs have always done. I'm not taking credit for this just in the modern era. They've always done this. When you hear RELs dialed in properly in a system, they communicate the vibe, the energy, the fun. You start feeling the actual beat of what's happening, and not just the beat that's the obvious one that's a kick drum, but you feel the beat of the musicians vibing off of each other. That's a really, really rare experience. And they have the ability to take the image from this compressed little constrained thing and just open it up. It's like just breathing life and air into the soundstage, and you wind up with this very lifelike, very engaging experience. Look guys, life is experienced full range. Every note has subharmonics and harmonics. We're used to talking about harmonics, how stuff that starts in the bottom rises, and that's 100% true. But it also goes down. So we're really used to hearing sound from virtually DC, from zero Hertz right on up to well beyond where our hearing stops, because we're used to also hearing the beat resonances that go on out maybe 30, 40, 50,000 cycles, 100,000 cycles. It's just how we experience life. And when you truncate it, when you cut it off, and you don't allow it to go, most speakers in a real room, 40-ish Hertz is a good speaker. Believe me, it sounds like I'm discriminating against speakers. I'm not. 40 real in a room is quite impactful and impressive. And yet there's a whole other octave, I would argue, two below that. That going down and extending actually below 20 Hertz even, is important to conveying vastness. When you hear a pipe organ in a huge cathedral, it takes time. Man, that note just doesn't hit like boom, and it's gone. They step on that pipe, it takes a moment for the pipe to fill with air. And then it goes rattling out across the entire, the roofline, down past the pilaster. It's a time-based event. And you cannot pull that off out of a couple of six and a halves in a skinny box, unsupported out in the middle of the floor. That's just not how physics works. Life is experienced sort of, we see DC to light, right? And when we don't do our best to get closer to DC, get into that 20 to 30 Hertz range, and ideally below even, it instantly lacks the relevance and the reality that we're used to hearing live music, or for that matter, special effects.