I had this same issue with my Carbon Special. I could not get the high level connection working with the Ayre amplifier I was using. It turned out the problem was that I had the ground cable connected to one of the Ayre’s chassis screws (the foolproof way to connect high-level to a balanced amp according to REL). When I finally tried floating the ground cable (ie connected to nothing), the problem went away and now the sub kicks like a mule on steroids.
Perhaps oddly, I didn’t have that problem with my Yamaha 2100 integrated when connecting the REL’s black lead to the Yamaha’s phono ground. It’s also a fully balanced amp, so not sure what the difference was.