REL Stadium III on test

<strong>REL</strong> <strong>Stadium</strong> <strong>III</strong> on test
By Jason Kennedy
<strong>REL</strong> is a small dedicated company based in Bridgend, south Wales and committed to
bass. It could be argued quite easily that <strong>REL</strong>
Overview:
founder Richard E. Lord put the subwoofer or subbass
loudspeaker system on the hi-fi map. Before he Website: www.rel.net
appeared on the scene the subwoofer was not the Size: HxWxD - 55.8x59x39cm
kind of thing any self respecting audiophile would Weight: 50kg
consider giving house room to. This may have been Finishes: Black ash, cherry, light
because most of the species were sold with satellite oak, rosenut, walnut
loudspeakers or simply because no one had made a Drive unit: 250mm long throw
serious subwoofer before, one that could enhance Power: 200 watts
rather than muddy the quality of regular speakers.
The key feature that makes <strong>REL</strong> subs so easy to get a good result with is the ability to
adjust the roll-off point of the sub so that it marries seamlessly with the stereo
speakers. <strong>REL</strong> subs are not designed to increase the amount of bass produced by a
system but to extend the bandwidth of the existing speakers. For a stereo speaker to be
able to extend down to the 12Hz (-6dB) claimed for the <strong>Stadium</strong> <strong>III</strong> it would have to be
as big as a fridge, a big fridge at that. The reason the <strong>REL</strong> is able to do that with a 65
litre cabinet is that it is actively driven, it has its own 200 watt MOSFET power amp and
electronic crossover which means that it can boost the output at very low frequencies. In
other words it drives the big ten inch Volt drive unit harder therefore producing more
bass energy.
Another reason for <strong>REL</strong>'s success is inclusion of both high and low level signal inputs,
this means that you can feed the sub exactly the same signal that you send to your
speakers via the high level input. The connection is made with a three core cable that
hooks up to your amplifier's speaker outputs. There is of course the low or line level
input but this is really only appropriate for surround sound processors which have a
dedicated LFE (low frequency effects) output.
Sound quality
To integrate the <strong>Stadium</strong> <strong>III</strong> with your speaker
traditionally requires that you roll the sub in at
the point your speaker rolls off and then set
output level to match the speaker. However, I
have found that if you set roll off three or four
dB higher than the speaker's roll-off and turn the
output level down a bit you can get a better
result. There are many surprising aspects to the
sound of this sub not least being the way that it
enhances the high frequency performance of all
the speakers I have tried it with. It introduces a
sense of open spaciousness that is hard to
accredit to an improvement in low frequency extension and power. It must be something
to do with the way that bass defines a space but is not an easy phenomenon to explain.

Yet it is not in the least bit subtle and gives the <strong>REL</strong> considerably more appeal than you
would expect an extra octave or two in the bass to produce.
The bass does of course help matters considerably, it adds a foundation to the sound
that gives the rest of the range something to work from, something solid. This seems to
apply regardless of the bass content of the music. There is a tendency to think that only
your Prodigy and Grace Jones albums will sound a lot better with a decent sub but the
<strong>Stadium</strong> <strong>III</strong> boosts everything you play. The more familiar and well loved the album the
more exciting the result, even albums like Jeff Beck's Wired, which is clearly fantastic
yet can sound compressed, takes on a whole new sense of purpose and solidity with this
sub.
All this is achieved without you thinking wow there's loads of bass, in other words you
are not skewing the balance of your system, the main speakers sound the same but
better. And if you turn the sub off you don't think where has the bass gone, you think
why is the sound small and relatively flat. You can set it up so that it goes boom and
everyone knows there's a sub in the room - which can be fun I'll grant you - but for long
term musical satisfaction an integrated sound is the way forward, the approach that's
going to reveal more of the music and the venue it's played in.
Verdict
The <strong>REL</strong> <strong>Stadium</strong> <strong>III</strong> is much more than a way to hear more bass, it's a way of
hearing more of the music and enjoying a truly three dimensional soundstage.
Once you've tried it there's no turning back.