Friends tell me I am crazy,

That I’m wasting time with subs,

They’ll never be hi-fi,

That’s not the way I see it,

‘cause I feel glad when one is mine,

Whenever one’s near me,

People always talk about subs’ reputatio...

(that’s quite enough of that, thank you! – Ed.) Spoilsport.

The….select club, that is Audio T Swansea’s blog readership (hello!), will be familiar with my subwoofer evangelism. Normally they’re REL, near to/or north of a grand and glossy habitues of our room corners. This little fellow does not fall into any of those categories, yet makes a spirited bid for our attention.

radiused wooden corners, grey marl open-weave cloth, cute little feet, what’s not to like?

Welcome to the family

Ruark have planned to make a companion subwoofer for their cute MR1 stereo system for quite a while now, but other projects such as the R3S and the new streaming R410, (both of which are compatible with the RS1) have hitherto taken priority with Team Secret Squirrel over at Ruark R&D. Finally, the wait is over and poor, young Eduardo at Ruark Sales will no longer have to bat away subwoofer-related questions from me.

the ruark mr1 mk2 active stereo speaker system. (well, one of them,) next to a walnut finish rega planar 1, chosen to match the ruark subwoofer. These blogs aren’t just thrown together you know.

It’s a handsome little fellow, achingly fashionable grey cloth wrapped around its middle, with a crisp walnut topping (and bottoming.) It will fit right in, in just about any modern front room you could mention and quite a few old-fashioned ones too. The rear panel is populated with the appropriate controls – gain, crossover and phase adjustment, plus a single RCA input and wee LEDs & graphics to reassure you that when the RS1 isn’t receiving a signal, it goes to sleep. Ahhhh, bless.

Set-up

Set-up is straightforward enough: play a track with a constant bassline (such as Ray LaMontagne’s “You Can Bring Me Flowers”) and adjust the phase position so the bass sounds at its loudest. Begin with the crossover and gain far too high so one is overwhelmed with bass, reduce the crossover so the RS1 isn’t reproducing the same notes as your MR1s, then drop the gain until you can’t tell where the sub is when your eyes are shut. You will probably need to recalibrate after a couple of weeks – the driver becomes more efficient and reaches higher into the register, so you might feel the need to pull the crossover down a smidge, adjust the gain a fraction.

Here, we’ve installed the Ruark RS1 as part of a basic vinyl replay system, such as you might enjoy in a small room: Rega Planar 1 Plus turntable (with onboard phono stage), Ruark MR1 Mk2 active speaker system and the RS1 subwoofer. At the time of writing, yours for a bargain £1097. One can connect a digital source such as a TV, which is ideal for movies and gaming, although most folks use the Bluetooth connection for streamed music, YouTube etc.

ooooo swoopy. gots to love a creative artist.

Without the subwoofer – it sounds really good. More scale and projection than one would expect from titchy speakers, Chaka Khan bounces along with gusto; rich, clear vocals and clean synth bass encouraging everyone to cut that rug. Switch the RS1 on and…..well, that’s better! We’re not hinting at bass any more, it’s tangible and we can feel that it fills the room. It adds the weight we didn't know we were missing, the kind that puts the music right into your guts. Marvellous.