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REVIEW: REL Acoustics Stentor III Speakers

Model:	Stentor III
Category:	Speakers
Suggested Retail Price:	$5000.
Description:	300 watts RMS, 600 w. peak; 10
Manufacturer URL:	REL Acoustics

Review by Croc on November 05, 2011 at 08:32:31 IP Address: 109.66.19.215

Add Your Review for the Stentor III

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For last 8 year I’ve owned REL Stadium III subwoofer.
It was purchased with stereo performance in mind and boy, did it deliver it!!!
It was big and heavy box, producing creamy but deep, powerful and most importantly fast bass.

Its bass integrated perfectly with wide range of speaker that I owned over the years – from small bookshelves, via big floorstanders, big JBLs with 15” woofers and up to horn speakers which have very fast and dry bass.
IMO big part of the success can be attributed to the way REL connects to the system – for stereo it connects to the power amp speaker terminals – so whatever character power amp induce over the speakers the REL will get this too – which sure should be helpful for seamless sub&speakers bass integration.

Because what we’re looking for is perfect bass integration. Forget about Home Theater explosions and punch – we want deep fast bass but don’t want to hear sub’s typical “oomph”. After we spend a lot of money on our amplification and speakers to get the sound we want – we don’t want the sub to take over system’s sound character.
In my system REL worked perfectly with 5 different amps – from 200 watts Krell up to 8 watts Single Ended amp.
You never could hear it – just when I unplugged it “something” went missing. This “something” is so essential that you can never go back.

So being so happy with it I never thought to replace the Stadium III by anything else – but when rare opportunity came to get locally second hand Stentor III – I knew I want it.
From the specs page it doesn’t looks like the difference should be huge – just 5 kilo of weight, just 5 liters more of volume don’t suggest too much of a change.
But there are 50% more on power and improved woofer element – is it enough to justify a roughly double price? (~3,500$ vs 6,500$)
Since I’m big REL believer – I just went and got it. Buying with no hassle of home addition helped me to get a good price – I was sure that it’s a safe buy and I’m not risking get some bad performance.

After I brought Stentor home with a help of my son (and almost lost my back) – we had to move out the Stadium – surprisingly it felt so much lighter than its big brother.
It felt more like 20 kilo difference (and not 5).
Then we put them one next to another – once again the difference in size is much more than 5 liters suggested. Suddenly “beastly” sized Stadium looked very modest and almost ashamed….

Well – to the sound differences:
In stereo it, as expected, has exactly the same character as Stadium and integrates perfectly into the system.
There is a difference though – its bass feels a bit lower and definitely bigger, more powerful and punchy.
Eventually it was “audible” too much and I had to dial down its volume quite a bit.
Still what’s left is a bit dipper and bigger bass.

It looks to me that in smaller room this would be too much – but in room of my size (~22 sq m) it works very good.
Now to Home Theatre – here were Stadium III wasn’t on par with best HT oriented subs – it definitely went veryyyy low, was powerful and rumbling – but it lacked that “punch” and “air moving” capability that people love so much in HT.
For me it was a good compromise – as for its price it delivered perfect Stereo performance and still could put to a shame a lot of good HT subs with low bass extension and speed.

Here where Stentor III shines (connected to processor's LFE output of course)– its HT performance is on par with the best and indeed threats your buildings structure and relationships with neighbors...

So as you can see I’m extremely happy with the Stentor III – it delivers all I hoped and exceeds my expectations.
Now to the price – this is a painful point – the upgrade costed me ~1,500$ which I was happy to pay and IMO is very well justified.
If you buy it new – 6,500$ is not an easy price to swallow.
But you get a truly reference product which is great in HT and unparallel in stereo. And with today’s high end products ridiculously high prices six and half grands actually doesn’t sound too much...

Frankly speaking – if you’re up to HT only – some huge Velodyne with bass EQ might be a more logical choice – but if stereo performance is on you menu REL’s ST series is unbeatable.

Stadium III is fantastic and should be more than enough in small rooms.
In my modestly sized room Stentor III provides more of everything and also gives vastly improved HT performance.

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Product Weakness:	none
Product Strengths:	Perfect integration in Stereo; deep, powerful, punchy yet very fast bass; fantastic Home Theatre performance

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Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier:	8 watts single ended
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	VTL The ultimate
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	EMM CDSA-SE
Speakers:	Klipsch La Scala horn speakers (moded)
Cables/Interconnects:	REL supplied cables
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	jazz, classis, rock, pop
Room Size (LxWxH):	6.4 x 3.4 x 2.8
Room Comments/Treatments:	corner bass traps, Auralex minifusors, floor carpet
Time Period/Length of Audition:	3 weeks
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

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Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.

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