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Audiovector R Sub Arreté

Audiovector R-Sub Arreté subwoofer

I have been using – and loving – the Audiovector R1 Arreté stand-mount loudspeaker ever since I reviewed it. In many ways, the elegant, upgradeable two-way R1 is the ideal loudspeaker for us sophisticated metropolitan types (I live in London, have some Arvo Pärt recordings, and have once eaten smashed avocado on toast in a coffee shop run by hipsters with quirky facial hair and a sleeve of tattoos). But there is one thing the R1 cannot do as well as its bigger brothers… bass. This is where the Audiovector R Sub Arreté comes into play.

As the name suggests, the R Sub Arreté is at the top of Audiovector’s performance grades, but unlike the loudspeakers, there is no upgrade path to the Arreté standard. It does, however, form part of Audiovector’s Individual Upgrade Concept, so when next-gen improvements to the Audiovector subwoofer happen, the company will make them available as upgrades to existing R Sub Arreté owners. Given people are upgrading Audiovector loudspeakers built initially two decades ago and bringing them to bang up to date; this is no empty promise.

Just the facts

The Audiovector R Sub Arreté features a 250mm long-throw, low compression front-firing carbon fibre bass driver, fed by a 400W Class AB amplifier with cryo-treated components and augmented by a down-firing passive radiating long-throw 250mm driver. All in a non-parallel cabinet with a laminated baffle sporting the company’s Nanopore damping material that takes up a shade less than 40cm all around.

Audiovector R Sub Arreté subwoofer

Audiovector’s ‘signature dish’ (two of the best restaurants in the world – Noma and Geranium – are both based in Audiovector’s home city of Copenhagen; these reviews aren’t just flung together at random, you know) is Freedom Grounding, the additional grounding mechanism that ‘earths’ the chassis of a drive unit through the AC mains earth, thereby lowering the potential for noise and distortion in the driver itself. It also has high and low-level inputs… for audio use, go with the high-level input that connects to the speaker terminals of your amplifier.

Setting up

Like most Audiovector loudspeakers, the R Sub Arreté takes 50–100 hours to reach optimum conditions. Still, because it’s an active loudspeaker that ties into the performance of the main speakers in the room, you should re-evaluate the settings once that run-in is complete. And, although it seems like I end up saying this in every subwoofer review we have ever run, in audio settings, it’s too easy to set a subwoofer too high.

Audiovector R Sub Arreté subwoofer

Play something with a simple bass line and a singer centre-stage (although it’s very ‘audiophile’, play ‘Ballad of the Runaway Horse’ by Jennifer Warnes on the 20th Anniversary edition of Famous Blue Raincoat or Rob Wasserman’s Duets) and dial in the subwoofer until the voice begins to snap into tighter focus in the middle of the loudspeakers and the bass lines just ‘walk’ more succinctly. Do the same a few weeks later when it’s all run in!

Reinforce the bottom

Any good subwoofer designed for audio use has not only to have the depth to reinforce the bottom end of the two main loudspeakers but also be fast enough to keep up with the smaller, more fast-moving treble and midrange units. In the process, well-set-up and well-made subwoofers are most directly noticeable in their improvements to the midrange, even if their impact ends at around 180Hz (as is the case here). This combination of characteristics is no easy task. Many subs that do wonders in home cinema systems (where their role is pure sound reinforcement) fall flat in audio settings (where their role is as much sound enhancement). The Audiovector R Sub Arreté is an excellent subwoofer for music.

The R Sub Arreté simply ticks all the boxes you need for a sub in an audio setting. Put it in a system, and it disappears sonically… but take it out, and the sound collapses back to its pre-subbed space; the soundstage shrinks, instrument voices seem less natural, and everything sounds a little bit insubstantial. When it’s in place, your system is better controlled, has a more natural and lithe sounding midrange, better integration between that midrange and the treble, and the soundstage gains solidity and space. It’s not that you made a mistake in the choice of loudspeakers – far from it, in fact – but the R Sub Arreté just brings out the last scintilla of performance from those loudspeakers by letting them do their job unconstrained by having to play very deep bass.

Uncanny

It’s uncanny, but the R1 Arreté and R Sub Arreté combination in a small- to medium-sized room is one of the most immediately arresting, enjoyable speaker systems you can get, whatever the cost. More enormous loudspeakers don’t necessarily bring better sound in this setting; they often just bring ‘boom’. That duo of Arreté models just sings and sings far deeper, broader and sweeter than you would expect. It’s also – and I don’t know why this is the case – more rhythmically engaging, which is a bit of a feat, given the R1 is already a loudspeaker that delivers maximum temporal funishment! Regardless, it gets more foot-tappy, which is a big bonus.

The R Sub Arreté’s natural home is within an Audiovector system, but it is not uniquely bonded to speakers from its line. Swapping the R1 Arreté for the KEF LS50 Meta showed just how quick the R Sub Arreté’s reactions were. It fills in the bass, fills out the midrange, and fills up the soundstage with KEF’s shining small star as Audiovector’s own. I’ve been giving the R Sub Arreté a bit of a pounding with several stand-mounts and floorstanders, and it’s only the almost preternaturally fast Vivid Audio Kaya S12s that outpaced the subwoofer.

Audiovector R Sub Arreté subwoofer

However, I still maintain that most Audiovector R Sub Arreté subwoofers will likely end up with Audiovector owners, and many of those owners will be using R1 stand-mounts or R3 floorstanders… and they will chew someone’s arm off to get this subwoofer in their systems. Not because it has an Audiovector badge (although that probably helps), not even because it’s future-proofed, but simply because it works so well and makes those R1 and R3 speakers sound even better. Audition at your wallet’s peril!

Price and contact details

Audiovector R Sub Arreté

  • Finishes: African Rosewood, Black Ash, Italian Walnut, White Silk as standard. Custom paint finishes on request.
  • Price: £2,225

Manufacturer: Audiovector

URL: audiovector.com

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Tags: AUDIOVECTOR R SUB ARRETé SUBWOOFER

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