Rel T/7x sub sound improvement but…


I just installed a single Rel sub to supplement my b&w 805 d4, and the sound was improved quite a lot. However I follow Rel official instructions and place the sub behind the speaker (right), and now I feel like many of the bass dominant instruments location are shifting to the right side. Is it my illusion, or is it real distortion? I don’t want to buy 2 sub to pair!

randywong

What are your room dimensions ?

I have (2) T5-X’s and they blend well, just takes a few shots.
I 1st will run test tones to really hear where my mains roll off to get an idea of where I’ll set the sub’s crossover…. but I do not set the gain or crossover yet.

2nd, which I feel is most important, I run just the mains with the sub crossover and gain turned all the way down and slightly increase the gain so as to match the Volume level of the mains… Do Not Want The Sub To Out Shine The Mains !

Once I get that and know how loud I want the sub to be, I do a balancing act of back and forth of Gain To Crossover to get a nice blend, generally every click up on crossover to one click down on volume and vise versa till I achieve a blend… Make sure you use a track you’re very familiar with and be patient. Also as noted in the comments above, corner placement will totally increase bass output, so placement is key, esp with (1) sub.
In my settings I tend to have the Gain lower than the Crossover.

I once read Add the Length & Width of your room & then Double it and that should be your crossover setting. IE: 12+14=26 so set your Crossover to 52…Of course I’d still play with the Gain as to not overpower the mains, but at least it’s a starting point. My Room is 12x12=24 so would be 48.
On my T5-X’s, each click on the Crossover is equivalent to 2.25hz and has a starting point of 30hz, so you do the math as to the clicks you apply. After all my tweaking I came up with 47.75hz as my crossover point, so this theory I guess was not far off.

Anyway, Most important no matter what anyone tells you…TRUST YOUR EARS !

It’s just how I do it and hope it helps.

 

I recently added a sub to my stand mount Reference 3A de Capo i which are spec'd down to 44 hz.  I dont have room to put the sub in a corner so i set it just behind and in the middle of the two speakers and set it for 80hz and very low volume.  Made a big difference just filled out the bottom of the sound.  not thump thump here just a fuller richer sound but subtle

I could always tell where the single sub was located even when the crossover was set low. Drove me nuts. I ended up setting up two subs using high level inputs in stereo. Both where set symmetrically with close proximity to the main speakers.  It was the only way I could get rid of the annoying imbalance.

Sounds like you have possibly both the crossover and volume on the sub set too high.  If you want to get better results it takes a little work upfront but well worth it, and once it’s done you’re done.  First, you want to find the place in your room where the bass sounds best and then fine tune the sub’s settings from that position.  This first link shows the proven “crawl method” to find the best locations for the sub for bass in your particular room, and the second link is a simple guide to effectively set the sub’s controls to optimize performance. 

https://www.audioholics.com/home-theater-connection/crawling-for-bass-subwoofer-placement

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-properly-set-your-subwoofers-volume-without-sh-1506136549

If you can’t do the crawl method initially, then Todd Welti who’s an expert in all things subs recommends placing the sub 20% into the room from the front wall and 25% into the room from the side wall, so you might try that placement and see what you get until you can do the crawl.  Hope this helps, and best of luck.