Hi guys – I would like more bass in my new hifi system but not sure which subwoofer to go for. I have an AVI setup consisting of Lab Series cdp, Integrated amp and Duo speakers. I also use a Project Debut turntable which will eventually be upgraded. I have considered the usual suspects from Velodyne and REL but am still non the wiser. Are the budget Wharfedales any good?
My budget is around the £500 mark and the sub will be used for music only.
Thanks Fred - the BK looks superb for the money. Yes I usually post in different forums to get a range of comments, although I've never had a reply from the What Hifi forum! The PV1 certainly seems expensive - more style than substance maybe? Not that I'm too keen on its looks anyway. Cheers
I have just recently listened to a REL Quake in my local Hi Fi shop and have to say it sounded amazing. Impressed so much that I shall be buying one at the weekend and falling out with the neighbours!
The Quake is easily bettered for less money, albeit at the expense of a few extra cubic inches of space. The BK XLS-200 is British built, sports a 275w mosfet amp, driving a Peerless XLS-10 10" driver - one of the finest dedicated sub bass drivers made that makes appearances in far, far more expensive designs....
....Like the MJ Ref 200 at (a scarcely believable) £750. Delete the remote control, 75w and replace buttons with knobs and you work out where the price difference goes? Hint: BK are the OEM manufacturr of MJ subs, so you'll notice more than a few similarities across the range. The MJ Pro 50 MkI for instance, is the BK Minotaur although the eagle eyed will spot the 50% price advantage the BK carries.
Save yourself £70 and enjoy deeper, cleaner bass than the Quake can ever offer. If you don't believe me, follow the link above to the extensive AV Talk subwoofer tests and note how the XLS-200 shows a clean pair of heals to the Pro 50, Q200e (the Quakes bigger brother), the Stampede and a good few other 'respected' high street brands.
A small sealed sub, such as all of the REL R series, will never even plumb the lower registers with any authority, never mind "ear shattering" SPLs.
If, on the other hand, you mean the R Series offer hopeless levels of distortion, but low group delay so the hifi boys will fall for them hook, line and sinker, then you're onto one.
The OP asked for recommendations of up to £500. The cheapest R Series wades in at £595 however, the T series throws up the excellent little REL T-1 which if googled carefully, throws up ex demos at less than the asking here.
The T-1 will plumb the depths harder and with less distortion than the allegedley superior R Series, but still maintain the smooth, low group delay that the hifi crowd crave. On this basis, I'd also have a long hard look a the BK XLS300/PR which aimed directly at the T1 but for less money and with more traditional styling.
I really like the odd-ball looks of the T series, but if you don't, you'd be hard pressed to insert the proverbial fag paper between the T-1 and XLS300 in performance terms.
cheers russel - ofc, if you want spl, then just chuck yer head into the back of the nearest citroen saxo at the garage tonight.
I'm right there with you - if you want something to shatter windows and shake floorboard during Jurassic Park, the BK is an excellent sub. And, I grant, the R's are a little more than the OP said, but I just bought one for £360 ex-dem, so not that far off.
I listened to a lot of small subs to go with my naim/pmc hifi rig - I was suspicious about a small, sealed enclosure box with a class D amp, but the results are astonishing. The R will never blow your head off, but in terms of integration with quality speakers, it's leagues ahead of the T-series. To get a smoother integration, I had to play with a Stentor, which is waaaaaay too much money.
Suggest hours of fun annoying the local hifi dealer might be the answer.
I'm afraid that you've repeated any number of common cliches and disinformation, oft found in the printed press and without a basis in reality.
You DO want a subwoofer capable of high SPL, because if you then run it at more moderate volumes, you benefit from the lower distortion of a device running well within itself. It's completely illogical to buy a sub woofer that just goes loud enough, or just goes deep enough - You wouldn't buy an amp or speakers that only go as loud as you listen, so why is a sub different?
As regards integration, the sooner people realise it's that the room has by far and away the biggest bearing on subwoofer performance, the sooner they'll stop buying weak subs in an effort to avoid the hard work that really good integration entails.
The wavelengths of sub-bass are in the same region as the dimensions of a room. As such, huge peaks and dips in the frequency response can result from standing waves and cancellations within that room. All to often a sub is descibed as 'boomy' when in fact all that has happened is that the sub has proven capable of reaching down into the room mode frequencies. Traditional hifi 'wisdom' is to replace the superior sub with a fartbox like a PV-1 because it 'integrates' better. In fact what has happened is that the sub user is sidestepping the issue of correct placement and tuning and in the process loosing a flat powerful, low distortion response.
As is self evident from this potential dominance of the sound by the room modes, when you demo a sub, you are intrinsically demoing the room in which it is in. Unless the dealer in question has a room the exact size, of the same physical construction and exact same layout as your own, then you haven't really done much more than work out what sounds good in his room. The only sub demo worth a pig-in-a-poke, is in your room.
The thing is, subwoofers aren't terribly complex beasts; nothing like as complex as a speaker for instance. They operate at frequencies too low to have a sound of their own and they are extremely measurable because even the smallest sub measurement takes significant preportions of a second. I know it offends the hifi ear to suggest that you can measure the absolute performance of a piece of hifi, but you can. There is a curious correlation between the manufacturers that say you can't and how badly their gear measures though. Coincidence?
The subwoofing community is also fortunate that there are a a pair of particularly commited individuals, one Engliish, one Finnish, who have undertaken extensive and completely independent testing of a number of products. You can find their tests here and here. Read the well written FAQs to get a grip on the more complex measurements. It took me ages to get my head around some of it.
You'll note that these tests do not take prisoners - poor performers stick out like a sore thumb with curtailed and non linear responses, high power compression, high proportion of high order harmonic distortion, poor impulse response etc, etc. However, it's particularly worth trying to understand 'Group Delay'. All so called 'musical' subs do this particular measurement well. Even if they screw up everything else, they will get this right. This quality is not mutually exclusive though, it is perfectly possible to combine it with solid performance elsewhere.
In the light of this, compare the REL R-305 with the XLS-200 at half the price. Pay particular attention to the scarcely believable distortion figures and note the enormous amount of clearly audible high order components exibited by the REL. Interestingly, this would result in a similar quality of bass to that produced by some fairly serious floorstanders ie, not actually very good, but it would sound familiar so people think it is good.
It's not. It's inaccurate and wrong.
It's worth reading the British test too. The big RELs are good subs (although expensive) and the T-1 shows that REL have stopped peddling the rather poor Q Series and are back to trying to advance the art with innovative products.
I recently bought a MIssion m6aS for £199 from Audio Affair (half price) and it mixes very well with my other Mission floor-standing speakers and centre speaker. It gives a full and 'thick' sound (just try some deep church organ music and you'll be like lifted out of your sofa). No boom either so I can turn it up quite a bit without worrying about the neighbours. My woofer gives a buzzing sound in standby mode, but I just turn it off. There is a on/off switch in the back and a window at the front to watch the settings. Easy to change sound picture with the remote control and adjust it to changes in the music!
Wow. I'm a complete idiot, and too stupid to realise it. Too stupid to own top-end hifi gear and too stupid to understand what sounds "good" to me. Thanks for pointing that out mate I'd never have realised otherwise.
I didn't realise you knew all there was to know. Good for you!
'High end' ownership is no protection from the accepted norm. You're clearly happy accepting what you read in the printed press, so I'll leave you to it, although I'm still wondering how, inspite of all this knowledge, you ended up with an 'R' Series REL?
They're mid-fi priced with low-fi performance, but you can call them hifi if you want.
When you've taken the time to hear real high end subs (as defined by performance rather than price) from the likes of Velodyne, SVS and BK back to back in the same room against the mainstream favourites, report back and see if your preconceptions have changed from from what you've been told to expect.
Until then, I'm sure you'll be happy with REL, B&W or MJ Acoustics at whatever prices they choose to charge. Your loss.
As a long time owner of a Rel Quake, i have to say that it is a good little unit. it integrates with the much higher priced kit I own, Classe, PMC etc, and works very well for music and movies too, having a "slam" and "depth" mode. Add to this hi and lo level inputs, it is a versatile unit.
Obviosly i have tried many others, but for me the Rel offered a good combination of spec in a small enclosure, for gawds sake, who needs more than 100 watts down below, unless you live in a mansion?
As a long time owner of a Rel Quake, i have to say that it is a good little unit. it integrates with the much higher priced kit I own, Classe, PMC etc, and works very well for music and movies too, having a "slam" and "depth" mode. Add to this hi and lo level inputs, it is a versatile unit.
Obviosly i have tried many others, but for me the Rel offered a good combination of spec in a small enclosure, for gawds sake, who needs more than 100 watts down below, unless you live in a mansion?
Russell - I did audition all of those and some more besides - I liked the *sound* of the REL with the PMCs, the only exception being a £5000 studio sub built by PMC for the building! So, a few hundred quid or (another) £5k on studiogear - what can I say? I'm cheap.
I like it for the same reason that I like a 1965 Marshall valve stack over the newer solid state guitar amps - they are more distorted, less clean, less predictable and have less dynamic punch, but the tone brings tears to your eyes and the overdrive raises the hairs on your neck.
I'd have an issue believing anything written in professional or enthusiasts press, as I rarely if ever read the damn rags! I used to read them a lot, but then I met some hifi journos....good for getting pissed with, but never believe a word they say......
You clearly know your stuff, but hey, so do a lot of folks. I don't have preconceptions, other than knowing what I like the sound of and what I don't. I know you mean to be informative, but you tell me I have preconceptions, that I accept journo-twaddle as fact and that I don't know what I like? Bit rude really?
Anyway, as I said you clearly know your stuff, so I'd be daft to not pay attention - Let's let it rest at this - I'll buy a BK 300 and run it in the same setup and room as the REL - If I like it more than the REL, I'll set fire to the REL and post it on YouTube.
I would only like to say that the better the sub, the less it sounds. If a sub has a definitive tonal character, then it really has fallen at the first hurdle. Anything that can be defined as tonal, really should be coming from the speakers.
Like me with my MJ Ref 200 before you, you're onto a win-win if you buy the BK. It was a leap of faith, but I bought my Monolith for less than the proceeds gained from the sale of the MJ and I have never looked back. There was the steep learning curve of integrating something with real power and low distortion, not to mention the initial "where did my bass go?" common to all owners with their first low distortion sub.
I have posted on another board because I wanted to know what speakers to go for as a Cinema extension to my receiver which is used for music currently.
Your post has helped me decide on the BK as a sub.
...any advice on the "tiny" satts to go with it please?!?!?! (Cheeky I know!)
I did finally purchase the rel quake and it does sound very good with my setup. Currently have an Sony STR-GA7ES Receiver, Castle Durham front speakers, Mission centre speaker (not sure what model) and some Sony surround speakers. The Rel replaced a faulty sony sub. Plan is to buy the Onkyo TX-SR605 and replace the front and surround speakers.
I'd never have realised otherwise. 
