Richard Lord built the first REL in 1990 because his system would not go deep enough, which is how most good products start. What made the company matter was not the driver or the amplifier but the connection.
A REL is normally connected at high level, taking its signal from the amplifier's speaker terminals rather than from a preamplifier output. It draws signal only, never power (the subwoofer has its own amplification), and the point is that it hears exactly what the main speakers hear, through the same sources, cables, preamplifier, and amplifier. The whole chain of custody is preserved, so the subwoofer's tonal and dynamic character matches the system it is joining instead of arriving from somewhere else. That single decision is why REL describes what it makes as sub-bass systems, and why the goal is integration rather than more bass.
Done properly, the result is not a subwoofer you notice. It is a main speaker that suddenly sounds larger, easier, and more grounded, and the effect reaches much further up the range than people expect.
The line runs from the Tzero MKIII through the T/x and Classic series, the on-wall Planar models and Serie S, to the Reference No.35 and No.36, whose cabinets are hand-finished and internally braced. Serie S and Reference models can be stacked in a Line Array where one is not enough. The Serie HT models are the exception to the high-level rule: they take LFE and low-level signals only, which is what a theater processor sends them.
Contact us or visit and we will show you what a properly integrated sub-bass system does.
