REL Acoustics, Ltd. of Bridgend, Wales was founded in 1990 by Richard Edmund Lord.  Dissatisfied by the commercially available subwoofers of the day, Lord set out to build Himself something better. Almost immediately, word spread of a Welshman who had built this incredible sounding sub bass system and soon enough audiophiles began searching out these legendary subs that were built like no other.

Lord began referring to them as sub bass systems, because the performance he had been able to achieve was the result of system engineering. Where common subwoofers rely on amplifying a line level signal, Lord had intuitively realized that the signature of the entire system had to be built forward into a pre-conditioning signal that allowed the sub to disappear into the music. Thus, from almost the very beginning RELs used a special high-level circuit. Many of the basic elements present in modern day RELs began finding their way into production RELs in the later 1990’s.

The modern era of REL began in 2005 when John Hunter and Donald Brody acquired REL. Almost immediately, they identified several key paths to take the strengths of the core REL philosophy and build upon them. First, the designs had to be updated and made to look as wonderful as they sounded. Second, for all their robust qualities, there was room for improvement in the area of electronics and driver technology. Accordingly, they set about on a comprehensive plan to upgrade and improve every aspect of the products; focusing on reliability, clean styling and robust mechanical construction–a path that continues to this day.

Today, REL is one of the fastest growing product ranges in the entire high end with strong international partnerships all over the world and acclaim coming from virtually every high end audio and home theater magazine. At its cornerstone, fundamental reliability remains its core strength, blended with a unique approach to design that results in what many consider the most musical and powerful sounding subwoofers available.

http://rel.net/