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Rythmik Vs REL Subwoofers - What to Buy?

I have an L Shaped living/dinning room.  The living room measures 13.5'x18.5' and the dining room measures 10.5'x13.5".  I have a pair of Paradigm Prestige 85F towers along the 13.5' wall hooked up to an ARCAM AVR550.  They are currently placed 8' apart with a 72" stereo cabinet between them leaving 45' on both sides of the cabinet.  This wall shares the outside 13.5' wall in the dinning room.  There are two 3' walls that narrow the opening to the dining room.

I am trying to decide what subwoofers to add to my system.  Three dealers suggested I add a pair of subwoofers rather than adding just one based on my room dimensions and room layout.  I am trying to decide between adding a pair of Rythmik F12 Signature subwoofers or a pair of REL T/9i's or a pair of REL S3's and locate them next to the towers.  However, because of limited space I may not be able to consider the S3 subwoofers, as they will crowd my towers more and it will most likely require moving my towers closer together from 8' apart to 7' apart.  The dealers I have talked to suggested I locate the subwoofers in the corners.    

I have an upright piano along the 18' wall to the right and I would prefier to use just one subwoofer located to the left of the piano located approximately 5' to 6' in front of the right front speaker.  This would prevent cluttering the wall where my towers are located and it would make our room look better.  If I locate just one subwoofer next to the piano, the speaker would point directly into the opening of the dining room.

Could you please advise as to whether to go with a Rythmik or a REL subwoofer?  I like the idea of the Rythmik Direct Servo technology.  The amplifier in the subwoofer has the ability to boost lower bass frequencies at lower listening volumes to prevent fall off.  However, would they sound too boomy?  I talked to a highly regarded speaker manufacturer and he told me if I went with the T/9i's, they rated them to go down to 28 Hz at -6 db.  He told me based on this, they would actually be lucky to play down to 35 Hz.  He went on to say this is woofer rather than subwoofer territory.  I have listened to both the REL T/9i and the REL S3 and I was not able to hear a significant difference in bass extension when they were played with a pair Bowers & Wilkins 702's.  However, I liked the way they blended in with the main speakers.  They were seamless and I swore all of the sound was coming out of the towers.  The problem is there are many recordings that contain bass frequencies of 24 Hz and possibly lower and if I go with the REL's I would not be able to hear anything lower than 35 Hz.  The Rythmik Signature F12's play down to 14 Hz.  The speaker manufacture I talked to makes custom Rythmik subwoofers and he told me the Rythmik subs are the most musical subwoofers he has ever heard.  Rythmik sells only direct and it would be helpful to be able to hear one before making my decision.

I listen to 70% music and 30% HT and my first priority is music.

If you were in my shoes, what would you recommend I do?
128x128larry5729

Showing 5 responses by bdp24

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,414 posts
 

Whoops Larry, you got me mixed up with somebody else; it wasn't I who said my REL S5 is boomy. I don't own one, and in fact have never heard one. If a REL sounds boomy in a room, the cause is more likely placement than the sub itself.

I actually have spoken with Brian Ding on several occasions, and you're right, a most knowledgeable fellow! Kinda hard to follow, both because of the accent, and because of my LACK of technical knowledge. He's WAY over my head. ;-)

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,414 posts
 

@larry5729: All this talk about 2-1/2 way vs 3 way, the sub specs of 35/28/24/14 Hz, what other people tell you (including your "friend", Jim Salk, Brian Ding of Rythmik), is fine, up to a point. But your words remind me of myself when I was new to the hi-fi game, before I had paid my "audiophile dues".

Whether a loudspeaker is a 2-1/2 way or a 3 way is not what matters; what matters is the sound it makes. You keep repeating those sub figures as if they tell one all about the capabilities of the subs, in the same way I looked at the harmonic distortion figures of amplifiers when I was 18, and just getting started.

I'm afraid it's not that simple or easy. You're going to have to do it the hard way, just like the rest of us did. Take a chance, and learned from your mistakes. Not everyone ends up with the same system, we each find the sound we hear in our heads. There is no shortcut. No one can do this for you, you've got to do it yourself. I hope this doesn't sound preachy; I feel your anxiety!

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,414 posts
 

Richard Vandersteen came up with a great idea for his subs: feed-forward. He determined the difference between the signal the sub was fed, and the sub’s output. He then created an electronic circuit that provided an inverse signal to the woofer, to eliminate that difference. So the feed-forward signal is static.

The Rythmik Direct Servo-Feedback circuit is an active, dynamic system; it reacts to, amongst other things, the changes in voice coil temperature (the temperature of the coil in ALL woofers changes in reaction to signal strength and driver-cone motion), compensating for that change in temperature so as to keep the output of the woofer consistent. You can read about that and lots of other technical information on the Rythmik subs on the companys’ excellent website.

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,414 posts
 
I haven’t heard a REL sub, but I’m sure they’re great. But remember, you won’t get as much of the bottom octave out of them as with Rythmiks. The F12 digs just as low as the F15, but it has slightly less (2-3dB) maximum SPL capability. Same sound quality and character, though.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,414 posts
 

Yeah, Jim Salk is himself a big Rythmik fan, and builds the F12 and F15 models into his own fantastic enclosures (and into some of his loudspeakers), the best I've ever seen. I copied his "honeycomb" bracing design for my enclosures when I built my F15 HP kits.

One reason audiophiles like the REL's is their speaker-level hookup, the sub taking it's signal from the main power amp, not the pre-amp. Well, in their PEQ and PEQ3 model plate amps, Rythmik provides both speaker-level (on binding posts) AND line-level (on RCA jacks) hookup. I know guys using pairs of F12's with their Maggies, and they feel like they have finally found a sub that blends seamlessly with planars. I concur.

If you have the extra money, the Salk/Rythmics feature very nicely finished real wood veneers, and as I said, incredible enclosures. If not, the standard Rythmiks will do quite nicely! 

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