REL SERIE S/5 SUBwooFER

This new model uses the same technology that’s used in Lockheed Martin’s Hellfire missiles, so REL is really getting serious!

No, No, No! It’s not a subwoofer, it’s a ‘Sub-Bass System’ says REL! Discontented with the conventional English-language system of spelling (you’ll notice that REL drops the final ‘s’ from the word ‘Series’, so its models are known as the REL Serie S2, REL Serie S5 and so on), it seems that REL is also unhappy with the word ‘subwoofer’, preferring to call its products ‘Sub-Bass Systems’.

I would not be so surprised at this use of language if REL were based in the Far East (or even in the USA!), but REL calls the United Kingdom home—of which kingdom England gave us the English language. (Though since REL lists its address as being in Bridgend, Wales, the company is actually Welsh… and maybe it’s this that makes all the difference.) On the other hand, it may just be that because REL is a specialist sub-bass system manufacturer (it does not make loudspeakers, amplifiers or any other type of audio product) it wants to differentiate itself from those full-line manufacturers who produce ‘subwoofers’ simply to round out their product ranges.

The Equipment

A cursory examination of the REL Serie S5 (variously identified by REL as being an ‘S/5’ and as an ‘S5’, so I’ll stick with S5 for this review, because it saves ink) might have you thinking that it’s a single-driver sub-bass system in a sealed enclosure, using a 300mm front-firing driver. And if that’s what you thought, you’d be wrong.

If you’d looked underneath the REL S5, you’d have discovered what looks like a second bass driver but is actually a 300mm-diameter passive radiator (of the suspended