REL subs with Rowland Amplifiers

 @ricred1  I think the blend is where it’s all at. The fact that the subs take their signal directly from the amp in the high level set up is what has distinguished REL’s for me over the years. REL used to claim that this was allowing the sub to more carefully track the signal at the amp end, not sure if they still claim that anymore. 
Your dealer is possibly wondering how to connect the sub ground wire to the amp chassis...as unlike many other amp manufacturers, Jeff chooses not to include a separate ground connector on his chassis. If you look at Lamm, Pass and others they do include this. Nonetheless, as I said before, Jeff is willing to add this necessity ( which I believe it really is) to your chassis.

I have been corresponding with Justin Magana who is REL’s Chief Engineer. Based on his advice I twisted the red and yellow wires together and connected my REL via the high-level input. The black wire is floated. It worked! I have plenty of output from the sub and absolutely zero hum.

Wow! Congratulations.

So are you saying, then, that the only difference between what worked and what previously didn’t work was twisting the red and yellow wires together, while having exactly the same connections in both cases? If so, I have no idea how to account for that.

Or are you saying that the red and yellow wires are now connected to the same positive output terminal of the amp, while you wait for the second sub to arrive which will be connected to the positive output terminal of the other channel? If so, it would still be hard to explain why you were previously not getting proper results, with the red and yellow wires having been connected to the positive output terminals of different channels. But it would suggest that previously the outputs of the two channels were somehow being subtracted from each other rather than summed. In other words, a polarity inversion was somehow being introduced on one channel, either in the sub or the amp or in one of the connections between the two. Or perhaps as a result of a miswire in one of the XLR cables upstream of the amp, such that pins 2 and 3 are interchanged at one end of one cable. Although most of those possibilities (aside from an issue within the sub or in its connections to the amp) would have had dramatic negative effects on what you were hearing from the main speakers.

So I’m completely puzzled at this point.

Best regards,
-- Al

Ricred what sub are you upgrading from and what improvements are you hearing with the Carbon limited? I have an S5 SHO. Congrats on your purchase! 

Al,
"So are you saying, then, that the only difference between what worked and what previously didn’t work was twisting the red and yellow wires together, while having exactly the same connections in both cases?" YES

"Or are you saying that the red and yellow wires are now connected to the same positive output terminal of the amp, while you wait for the second sub to arrive which will be connected to the positive output terminal of the other channel?" YES, per my conversation with Justin that's the way I have to connect dual REL subs anyway; therefore there wasn't any risk in connecting the single sub this way. He assured me nothing bad would happen, so I tried it.