The Making of Carbon Special

In recent years, a new tradition has taken hold at REL; our special models ––ones destined to be either extremely short duration, true limited editions.

The Most Performance Possible in a Medium Chassis REL

These rarified subwoofers are where our design team gets to combine many of our best components: pure carbon fibre drivers, massively powerful amplifiers, crazy new filter topologies and bespoke styling to make some of the rarest and most desirable RELs of all time. 

Part research project, part fantasy, these are where we get to ask the question “What would we build if we wanted something exquisite, limited production where our best instincts come together to form a best of all worlds scenario in a normal living space? Often one step back from the no-holds-barred exercises of our Reference line, these are more real world, less Rolls/Lamborghini, more M3 Lightweight in nature.

Carbon Special is the latest, and as its name implies, the most special limited edition to-date. It started as usual, me turning to Justin and saying “You know, this new S/812 is such a beast, it makes me wonder what would happen if we strapped the latest version of our 12”/350mm all carbon fibre BlackWidow™ driver into a similar chassis, let the horses run and pull a full 1,000 watts out of the amp like we do for the big No.25 and tweaked the filter set a bit…”. Seventeen months of continuous design and evolution later, we have a model destined to become the stuff of industry legend. 

PROJECT INVOLVEMENT

Industrial Design

Photo Realistic Renderings

Mechanical Engineering / Drawings / Solidworks

Rear Panel Artwork

Cost Reduction and Manufacturing Support

Of course, along the way, all kinds of fun ideas for how to make something that is beginning to sound this special look the business are popping into my head, followed by similar endlessly painstaking fettling. A new badge created by taking God’s own ball-ended mill—basically a huge round, spinning cutter head–that cuts a perfect half sphere out of a huge, square chunk of billet T-356 aerospace aluminium.

Then it turns out that the chrome doesn’t play nicely with the alloy, so we change up to highly polished stainless steel with deep stampings of the REL logo being de-bossed inside the spherical depression. Is this too much detail? No? Of course I added a simple carbon fiber bezel around this circle within a square motif just because such high polished contrast of chrome and piano lacquer really needs a little something calmer to keep things this side of gaudy. And carbon fibre side strakes that break up the monotony of sidewalls, suddenly  rendered bland by the dimensional stretch we gave the cabinet to create enough internal volume for everything to play nicely together. The overall effect is classy, subtle, refined and elegant. More hand-tailored Savile Row suit than spandex and bling. It’s the subwoofer Pierce Brosnan’s 007 would be caught dead listening to.

Ryan