Company History

In this article, we will be going over the REL Classic 98 subwoofer. Ever since 1990, when REL was founded, they have produced some of the most highly respected subwoofers in the industry. The Classic 98 draws its design from REL subwoofers of the past but has all of their current technology for performance that has made both music lovers and home theater enthusiasts love their products for decades.

Most subwoofers these days are a matte black or high gloss black box with the woofer facing forward. But if you go back a few decades, subwoofers looked more like a nice piece of furniture. I suspect this is because back then, home theaters did not yet exist, with their usually easy way to hide a subwoofer. In those early days, a subwoofer had to fit into a living room and blend in with the rest of the furniture. REL, and almost all subwoofer companies of the day, produced beautiful wooden subwoofers that housed a downward-firing woofer. And in that time frame, no one had to think about subwoofers handling massive explosions, so the focus was on music only and blending the subwoofer perfectly with the main stereo speakers.

As home theater exploded, and so with it a demand for subwoofers, most companies switched to the black box you see today. Fast forward to 2023, and the resurgence of vinyl and big interest in owning classic vintage audio gear has changed the landscape. While home theater is still extremely popular, there are large groups of music lovers who put together a vintage stereo system in lieu of a home theater. And there are some who have done both. These systems are usually not hidden away in a bonus room or separate space and might be the focal point of a modern home.

REL was pretty astute to see this shift and introduced the Classic 98 subwoofer for just that customer. They wanted to make something beautiful that would pair up well with vintage or reissue vintage speaker systems while giving you a whole lot of great REL technology.

If you are in the market for a subwoofer of any type, you have found the best source with Audio Advice. We have a team of passionate home theater and music lovers with a massive amount of combined experience. If you need help setting up your subwoofer or any gear, we are just a phone call away with lifetime support. We also have a huge library of articles and videos on getting the best from your system. And we hope you will support our business by choosing to purchase your subwoofer from Audio Advice.

The REL Design Principles

Now, before we get into all the details on the Classic 98, we need to go over one of the things that REL does differently from almost all other subwoofer companies. They have believed in this philosophy from the beginning, and it has certainly proven itself over time. But when you go to connect up your first REL subwoofer, especially if you have owned other subwoofers in the past, you might be thinking, what the heck?

REL was started because the founders of REL were not happy with other subwoofers on the market. They prefer a method of adding a subwoofer to a music system that is pretty interesting. If you have ever used a subwoofer, you know that it will connect up to a subwoofer output via an RCA or balanced audio cable. REL gives you that option as well, but they highly recommend you connect it up via a high-level cable and include a long one in the box with all of their subwoofers that use this method. High level means it will be connected up in parallel with your speaker wires at the back of your power amp, integrated amp, or receiver. You simply add these small speaker cables to your speaker connections, and the other end has a single connector that plugs into the rear of the REL subwoofer.

The REL subwoofer is not actually powered by your amplifier but gets its signal feed that way. This actually has a few advantages. With the signal passing through your power amp first, the REL sub gets fed the sonic character of your amp rather than just a sub out where the signal never goes through your power amp. Now, while the differences in the sound of power amps can be debated, most people would agree they do sound different, especially tube amplifiers.

Another advantage is the main signal going to your left and right speakers is not filtered in any way. It stays completely true to the source and never passes through any kind of crossover, which is typical of subwoofer connections. REL believes letting your main speakers naturally roll off and then tuning the subwoofer to kick in where they drop off is better musically than splitting the signal with an electronic crossover, which in almost all cases these days will need to digitize the signal. This method also lets you connect a great subwoofer to a high-performance system that does not have a subwoofer out. As a matter of fact, most great gear, especially if it has vacuum tubes or is vintage audio gear, has no subwoofer out.

When you add a REL subwoofer to your system, you will start out by doing the same things you would do with any subwoofer, which is finding its best location for bass performance. We have help guides and videos linked here. Once you find the best physical location, that is where the REL set up is a little more tedious, but we feel well worth it.

If you have a system with a subwoofer out and variable crossovers, you can usually play with everything from your listening chair using the remote control. With a REL, you will be moving around a lot, and you can save a lot of time if you have a helper. You are trying to find two things, the crossover point where the subwoofer needs to start doing its job and the best level for the subwoofer once you have that point set. There are two knobs on the back of the REL that control these two things. I find it a whole lot easier if I am sitting in my chair listening and having someone make these fine adjustments while I sit there. Then I can blend the subwoofer so well, you only know it is there when you turn it off and think, hmm, something is missing!

Now you might ask, well, what about a home theater system and the LFE feed, which stands for low-frequency effects. That signal only comes out of a subwoofer out in a home theater system. Well, REL has you covered as their subs also have an LFE input, and get this, it has its own level control. This lets you blend a REL sub perfectly for the vinyl side of your system, and if the same system does your home theater, you can have a different level for all those explosions.

These features are just some of the things that make REL subwoofers unique, and you will find them all on this great new Classic 98 subwoofer.

The Classic 98 Features

The REL Classic 98 comes in a beautiful sealed walnut cabinet with a 10” downward-firing woofer. REL went back to a paper cone driver as most vintage subs of that era used paper cones, but they put in all of their latest tech, making it far better than anything from an earlier time frame. The outer ⅔ of the cone uses a hot-pressed, lightweight paper material with an inner cap of premium air-dried paper. This combination makes the driver stiffer than anything from their past. Like most subwoofer drivers of earlier times, a natural butyl surround is used.

The woofer is powered by a very fast and dynamic 300-watt Class D power amp, and REL’s latest filter technology is also used to create a seamless blend with your main speakers.

Performance Testing

We were very curious to see how the Classic 98 would sound and also wondered how it would compare to the T9/X, which is about the same price. REL says the T9/X is faster, deeper, and more detailed, but if you have vintage or new issue vintage speakers, the Classic 98 should be a great match sonically and look fantastic with them. We first paired it up with a pair of JBL Classic L82 speakers, which are an 8” two-way design.

We played around with the subwoofer positioning to get it dialed in, and even found in this particular room with the downward-firing subwoofer driver, the bass was better blended and had far more output in the 180-degree phase position. Should you get one of these cool subs, be sure to try the switch both ways.

With the L82, the Classic 98 was a great match. It gave the entire experience at least an extra octave of bottom end and blended really well with their type of presentation. We even felt the midrange improved a bit with the extra lower-end extension the Classic 98 provided.

Staying in the JBL Classic family, we paired the Classic 98 with the smaller 5 ¼” two-way JBL Classic L52. The improvements here were even more obvious than you might expect. Adding a subwoofer to a small pair of bookshelf speakers will normally bring a smile to your face, and that is exactly what happened here.

We then decided to go in the opposite direction and test the Classic 98 out with the very large JBL 4367 studio monitor. This is one of our favorite speakers and has an incredibly fast and detailed bass response. In this case, what REL had told us was spot on, as we felt it was not a great match for the 4367. We could just not get it to blend properly and preferred the sound with it out of the system. As a note, we had previously tried the T9/X with this speaker and had gotten good results, which confirms exactly what REL had predicted we would hear.

The Classic 98 is a beautiful subwoofer that will likely match up perfectly with any vintage or new design vintage speaker that has limited bass response from around 50 hz and down, which is a whole lot of speakers from the vintage era and many smaller new vintage designed speakers. If you have a speaker that has more serious bass capability and speed, you will be better off with a REL T9/X. Another great thing I’ll mention again is if you have a vintage receiver or integrated amp without a subwoofer and have been itching for a subwoofer, the Classic 98 will be your perfect solution with its speaker-level connection system.

If you’re planning your home theater or media room, you have to check out our Home Theater Design page, where we have everything Home Theater related, including our FREE Home Theater Design Tool.

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