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Auditioned the Rel S2/S3 and .7's at Audio Perfection in Mpls...long

Posted by Mark Man (A) on June 15, 2015 at 09:42:35

My very good audiophile friend, who lives 70 miles south of the Twin Cities, his Rel Storm III fried a couple of months ago and could not be repaired. (He did send it in)...

Called me yesterday morning and asked if I would go to Audio Perfection and check out the Rel S3. Since my dance card was open, I gave him the resounding YES.

They did not have the S3 set-up, but had the S2 in a small room, (12'X12'), with the .7's. The S2 was being run via Wi-Fi, a $300 option, set in a corner. The .7's were hooked to a Rega intergraded and Rega CD player.

I have never heard the .7's before, so this was a real treat. They had the oval base with the peg legs. Wow...what a gem of a speaker, filled that little room with glorious sound out of a very modest system.

The REL controls on the back are notched, so as you are adjusting you feel this clicks that are very close together. I started by pushing the crossover way up and slowly bringing it down until I could not localize where the sub was in the room. Then pushed the volume up and started to bring it down until it just filled out the bottom...This was accomplished within about 5 minutes...then eureka...

The S2 is a very small sub...about 14" square. Build quality was just beautiful. This little guy would start and stop like Barry Sanders running a draw play...no overhang, no slop, no bloat, no farting...just tight and tuneful bass being fed like it was coming out of the .7's...

The Rel repair guy told my friend, due to the size of his room and being used for movies and music the S3 would be the better choice. After a quick phone call, I handed my phone to the dealer, he gave him his credit card number and they loaded the S3 in the back of Jeep...I love spending OTHER peoples money...nice...

Sidebar no. 1:
His wife asked him "do you trust Mark to make this $2000 decision?" He gave her a resounding "yes"...we have very similar ears and have been friends for over 20+ years...He is a Structural PE, left handed of course, we met when I hired his firm to do engineering for us in the precast concrete biz...we became friends and I got him started in this hobby...(his wife reminds me of that every time he buys something)..I had an HT/Music system and he wanted to set one up in his basement. He was all set to buy some Infinity's, then I took him to Audio Perfection where he heard the MG-12's, well and as they say the rest was history...

Sidebar no. 2:
They had the Wilson new Sabrina's set-up with AR frontend and a guy was there auditioning them, so I asked him if I could listen for a while with him...no problem...all I can say about them is they were very dull, un-involving and played small...all this for $15K...really??!!?? My 3.7's would take these out to the wood shed and go Adrian Peterson on them...(we are using running back analogies today)...I actually preferred the .7's over these...

Next, in the big room was the Wilson Alexia hooked up to the Bel Canto Black...Lets start this out by saying this is a $100K+ rig. At low volume, not very impressive at all. Once you started to push the volume, things really opened up. If I had to use one word to describe the sound it would be...Expansive. Expansive does not mean width of soundstage, more like room filling...They give a very visceral presentation of the music. BUT, timbre and tone felt as if there was a thin layer of sun screen over the sound...something was just not quite right...I am guessing my ears are just use to the Maggie correctness...

Now, back to our story...got the sub hooked up in his listening room. He has tricked 1.6's, with an outboard passive crossover. Started with the same type of procedure, push the crossover up and start bringing it down until things blend...this was really funny as we were doing this. We would look at each other, start talking at the same time and were both saying the exact same thing...I said we had similar ears...Once again, it took about 5 minutes and we had it pretty zoomed...

We started fine tuning with some Pink Floyd, (the usual suspects), Chris Isaak, Heart Shaped World title track. This track has a really good bass drum. You can hear the thwack of the mallet on the drum head...several plays. The impact of this felt spot on. Sting, Mercury Falling, track 4, I was brought to my senses...has an acoustic type bass sound, (I do not know the name of the instrument), but it has this great really pure tone...it has allot of sustain that floats with soft decay...wow was this nice. He looked at with this smile like he won the lottery...I will not go into tracks 8 and 9 on this album...but this is great album very well recorded. Next was Ricki Lee Jones, Chuck E.'s in love, track 7, Danny's all-star joint. This track has about as perfect a Fender P-bass that you can find. All the way to the buzz of bass strings on the frets...great walking bass line...this was as tight and fast as I have ever heard it, toe tapping goodness. Patricia Barber, Café Blue, Ode to Billy Joe...stand-up bass played in a very live room...this track oozes PB's coolness in spades...just beautiful. The ring of the room and sustain of bass had this you are there type of feel about it. SRV, Couldn't Stand the Weather, the tightness of Double Trouble bass and drums, really pushed itself to the forefront. My friend commented that he did not like to listen to this album when he did not have a sub hooked up...I can't remember the bass players name, but he plays ALLOT of fills under SRV's deep tone Strat...these came to life, where all the nuances of his playing was on display...

With a medium size listen room, the S3 is a total winner. As of now, that is the best sub and integration I have heard with Maggie's. This little guy starts and stops like no other. Tone, timbre and my least favorite word, musicality are all on display here. This is not a cheap sub, $2000, IMHO...most of you know that I am pretty cheap. I would put would my hard earned money down and buy this without hesitation...

Now, a question to you all...I am very familiar with his system. When he did not have a sub, it was, and dare I say a little lifeless. With the sub, the mids and highs were more defined and overall sounded much better...he agreed with me. Why would this be?

Sorry for the long rant...but damn it was a great Audiophile play date...
Thanks
Mark

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