Anyone hear the REL HT-1205 sub?

[Mark M]

I was thinking of upgrading my Elac s12eq sub to a REL HT-1205 sub.

Both are about the same price, 12" driver, and 500 watt Class D amp.
I know that REL makes great subs. I was wondering how much better than the Elac I already have.

 

[lovinthehd]

Rel makes mediocre subs IMO, personally I'd never consider one of theirs (nor an Elac for that matter). Far better out there. That they share a driver diameter and an amp rating isn't very meaningful. What's the use of the sub, i.e. what content music or movies or both? SPL or extension goals? Volume of room? What gear do you have to integrate the sub with?

 

[Mark M]

Both music and movies.
I have Elac Uni-fi towers.
Room volume approx 5600ft
Really? REL is mediocre? I’ve read they are one of the best out there.

 

[lovinthehd]

What are you reading?

That's a huge room for one little 12" sub.

Yes, Rel's performance is mediocre compared to many others. Check out Funk, Seaton, Deep Sea Sound, JTR, Hsu Research, Rythmik, Power Sound Audio and SVS as primary candidates....if not simply DIY.

 

[Mark M]

What are you reading?

That's a huge room for one little 12" sub.

Yes, Rel's performance is mediocre compared to many others. Check out Funk, Seaton, Deep Sea Sound, JTR, Hsu Research, Rythmik, Power Sound Audio and SVS as primary candidates....if not simply DIY.

Ok. I only sit 9-10 ft away from the speakers

 

[lovinthehd]

Ok. I only sit 9-10 ft away from the speakers

That's fine for speakers, subs more work off the whole volume of your room. Might try this article as to how your room/sub frequencies interact https://www.soundandvision.com/content/schroeder-frequency-show-and-tell-part-1

(altho your sub may work well enough for your primary seat if well setup)

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Both music and movies.
I have Elac Uni-fi towers.
Room volume approx 5600ft
Really? REL is mediocre? I’ve read they are one of the best out there.

Mediocre is being nice. They are not a good value. They have some good subs, but they cost far too much. Their inexpensive subs range from awful to ok at best, and many cheaper subs are better performers.

If I were you, I would buy a second subwoofer. It will provide more sound improvement than simply upgrading.
You could buy another Elac sub so it matches, that is probably the best option.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

That's fine for speakers, subs more work off the whole volume of your room. Might try this article as to how your room/sub frequencies interact https://www.soundandvision.com/content/schroeder-frequency-show-and-tell-part-1

(altho your sub may work well enough for your primary seat if well setup)

Ok I know, way too much info for this thread, but...

This is probably a good orientation article, but I feel compelled to note that Brent oversimplifies the concept of Schroeder frequency and doesn't really clearly articulate the main conclusion we can draw from these laws of physics. That is, below the Schroeder frequency, the room dominates the sound of bass, what we hear isn't the subwoofer, it's the room. Any minor differences in the sound quality of a subwoofer (within a given linear range) are completely swamped by the room's own distortions. The higher the RT of the room, the higher in frequency that this is true. That means, in that given room, within a linear range, all speakers will sound the same. What you hear is the sound of the room, not the speaker. This isn't true at higher frequencies where far more of the sound is direct.

As for the simplification, Schroeder himself realized that the there wasn't, in fact, a hard handover between the resonant and stochastic zones. It's actually a gradual handover. That is why the spread in the measurements actually starts between 500 and 800hz and slowly increases until the big jump at roughly the point of the calculated Schroeder frequency. That number is better thought of as the bottom of the transition zone. It's also not precise, so to call it a law of physics is a little extreme. There is a law of physics at work here, we just don't have a full understanding of it. 2000 was used as a constant multiplier as was chosen not by point of absolute fact but because it was the value that best assured the accuracy of the formula at high frequencies (it was just a constant fitted to the data at hand). In practice, different rooms behave differently and we don't actually see this number to hold true absolutely. Even below the room's fs it is not uncommon to see behavior that is inconsistent with this modal behavior, and more consistent with statistical behavior. This becomes especially true when there is significant LF absorption. It suggests that f=2000(t/v)2 is only true when t falls above a certain value. As t drops below a certain point, the absolute value of the lower limit of the high-frequency zone starts to become more ambiguous.

http://www.akutek.info/Papers/MS_Schroeder_Revisited.pdf This is a better technical discussion, but too dense for most to bother with.

I know, I know, way too much information. I can't stop myself.

 

[Mark M]

Mediocre is being nice. They are not a good value. They have some good subs, but they cost far too much. Their inexpensive subs range from awful to ok at best, and many cheaper subs are better performers.

If I were you, I would buy a second subwoofer. It will provide more sound improvement than simply upgrading.
You could buy another Elac sub so it matches, that is probably the best option.

Perhaps you’re right. A second Elac May be the way to go.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Perhaps you’re right. A second Elac May be the way to go.

Have you considered selling the first elac and buying two more capable subs? 5600cuft(not including hallways and foyers etc) is pretty big.

 

[Mark M]

Have you considered selling the first elac and buying two more capable subs? 5600cuft(not including hallways and foyers etc) is pretty big.

What do you guys recommend?
I do like having the phone app to control the sub. Very handy!

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

What do you guys recommend?
I do like having the phone app to control the sub. Very handy!

I think that would be handy indeed. How much are you comfortable spending?
http://rythmikaudio.com/
http://www.hsuresearch.com/
https://www.svsound.com/
SVS has subs that use app control too, and afaik more comprehensive than the elac system. They are not cheap though. HSU is likely the value leader, but subwoofer life is more than academic. SVS for example has in home trial with free shipping both ways and a trade in/upgrade program etc. lots of good options. First question though is budget.

 

[lovinthehd]

What do you guys recommend?
I do like having the phone app to control the sub. Very handy!

What do you use the app to do particularly?

 

[Matthew J Poes]

SVS offers a phone app as well. They offer some models that provide more bang for your buck than the Elac.

 

[Mark M]

What do you use the app to do particularly?

Volume and eq

 

[lovinthehd]

Volume and eq

You change eq and volume frequently....for each source or something? What do you have for bass management otherwise?

 

[Matthew J Poes]

You change eq and volume frequently....for each source or something? What do you have for bass management otherwise?

When SVS, ML/Paradigm, and others first released these apps I was joking to @shadyJ that these apps are great, we can all stay up at night fretting over the precise settings, adjusting endlessly until we die of dehydration, lack of food, or lack of sleep. I think the apps do greatly simplify setup and I think they are something all subwoofer manufacturers should embrace. However, I also tend to think they make the ability to make constant adjustments too easy. I think you are getting at the idea that if setup right we shouldn’t need to adjust the subwoofer level or eq more than once.

Of course, the counter to that is that a lack of standardization in both movie and music productions leads to a circle of confusion in which the accurate reproduction is impossible to know. Movies and music can easily be mixed with too much or too little bass and adjustments may be needed. Toole talks about using tone controls for this, raising and lowering the sub is effectively the same thing and actually makes more sense for a surround system. Tone controls often only apply to the front L and R speakers. So as much as I would like to say that people should set it and forget it, there is a totally rational reason to need to adjust a subwoofer constantly.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Oh but I must add, the fractional ms adjustment of phase is maybe a little silly. When wavelengths are that big, we don’t need to be that precise. Precision for precision sake is not smart. If anything, it makes the products harder to setup.

 

[lovinthehd]

When SVS, ML/Paradigm, and others first released these apps I was joking to @shadyJ that these apps are great, we can all stay up at night fretting over the precise settings, adjusting endlessly until we die of dehydration, lack of food, or lack of sleep. I think the apps do greatly simplify setup and I think they are something all subwoofer manufacturers should embrace. However, I also tend to think they make the ability to make constant adjustments too easy. I think you are getting at the idea that if setup right we shouldn’t need to adjust the subwoofer level or eq more than once.

Of course, the counter to that is that a lack of standardization in both movie and music productions leads to a circle of confusion in which the accurate reproduction is impossible to know. Movies and music can easily be mixed with too much or too little bass and adjustments may be needed. Toole talks about using tone controls for this, raising and lowering the sub is effectively the same thing and actually makes more sense for a surround system. Tone controls often only apply to the front L and R speakers. So as much as I would like to say that people should set it and forget it, there is a totally rational reason to need to adjust a subwoofer constantly.

I can raise/lower sub levels via the avr remote or apply different eq. I don't use a sub specific app for that so was curious just what the use in this case was for the sub's app. Changing settings for different content is something a lot of folk do I would assume.

 

[shadyJ]

I can raise/lower sub levels via the avr remote or apply different eq. I don't use a sub specific app for that so was curious just what the use in this case was for the sub's app. Changing settings for different content is something a lot of folk do I would assume.

Apps for sub control are not a bad thing, but their usefulness is pretty conditional. Most adjustments to the sub should be made from the AVR, not on the sub itself. Once the sub is dialed in, any changes you make on the sub itself takes it out of calibration. Most users don't really dial their sub in that good to begin with, so I don't see that as catastrophic. I think sub app controls are something that most people will fool around with for about 30 minutes or so and then forget about afterwards. It can be a useful feature, but it isn't a game-changer for me, at least, since most of what it control really should be done from the AVR instead.